Behind the Mask
by OsmiumAnon
Summary: Space Marine and Eldar Dire Avenger are marooned on a tyranid infested world. With their goals seemingly compatible, if not precisely the same, the wise choice is to accept the aid of the other, no matter how distasteful. Every warrior wears a mask, yet some are harder to put aside than others.
1. Behind the Mask

**Original A/N: **Wrote this up from an idea I came across about Space Marines and Eldar Exarchs being really pretty similar. Decided against making the Eldar an actual Exarch, but still an Aspect Warrior who is solidly on the Path.

Now this is smut, and no mistake. It has a long burn to get to the porn, but the porn is porn. See I like rationale and a reason for the porn to make sense, usually, and I especially want it to be at least slightly believable for a Space Marine to just go to bone town when all their depictions have them as super sexless. I'm no psychopath who's just going to go from zero to Sanguinius sounding Horus while Ferrus eats his asshole, y'know? No thanks.  
Anyway, this is a story about your standard autist space marine who is a fucking genius when it comes to the rooty tooty point n shooty but knows nothing at all outside of that hanging around with an Eldar who isn't a stunted overgrown child with hypnoconditioning. Hopefully I was successful in capturing a nearly hundred year old man who has never had a single sexual thought in his life suddenly learning what cock is for.  
Did it work? Did it suck?  
Did it make you launch your drop pods?  
Only you can find out!

**FFNET A/N:** So this story has already been around. Ao3, Pastebin, /wst/ but I figured I'd post it on too. There's not enough warhammer here. There's definitely some hardcore in it, but all told despite starting as more of a smut story it's not really that anymore. Consider it like an HBO show.

* * *

**THOUGHT OF THE DAY: DOUBT FORMS THE PATH TO DAMNATION**

* * *

T**HE ELDAR** – the xeno – was humming under its breath, running lithe hands across the cracked surface of its rifle. He hated it. The sound of it. The fact of it. Watching the jagged tear in the crystalline material slowly pull together at the suggestion of the xeno's voice. It had blocked a cleaving strike from a tyranid bioform with the body of the gun, saving itself at the expense of the functionality of the weapon. Its voice pulled at his focus, the lilting, half-heard tones that plucked at the skein of reality as it rewove its weapon. His bolter, by contrast, was still in perfect working order. He had no rounds, granted, but the machine-spirit was fiery and unharmed with the frame clean of any deformation or damage beyond simple cosmetic damage.

Time and again, dealing with the eldar – the xeno – he felt the same indescribable sensation. A strange, intrusive desire to violence yet was distinctly separate from the bloodlust he felt in the din of combat. It was a directionless irritation, one that he found he could not vent nor scratch through repeated battle drills that left him slathered in sweat and panting. He had spent hours in form practices, chainsword deactivated but slashing through each combat style he knew. Again and again and again until even his genenhanced physique was pushed to its limits. For a time he would be centered, focused only on action and reaction, on the feel of his Emperor-given frame running hot and sure.

And yet, around the eldar, the itch returned. It made his hands flex, his blood heat, the moisture in his mouth flee as he looked at it.

It made no sense.

It had to be some effect of its witch-powers. It was no true psyker like others of its benighted race. That was clear. It was too physical, too practical. Many times a burst of witch-fire or unnatural incantations would have saved them both from injury or ambush, yet never had it manifested such. The limits of its warp-touch seemed to be its strange control over what it called 'wraithbone', the osseous material that made up its armor and arms. Tricks and techniques gleaned from its mother, it had mentioned.

This had to be some other hidden talent. It was getting inside his head, or trying to. Trying to corrupt him, or turn him. Or just simply distract him.

That had to be the case.

He sneered at the idea. He was Astartes, forged of far sterner stuff than the slender alien. Let it try, let it batter itself to exhaustion against the steel bars of his mind. His Wayfarer, both more than a Chaplain and less, would be proud. He had the rituals of Choroct in mind, the mantras of focus and calm to call upon. His mind was steel, the eldar a feather.

Indeed: he eldar were ever crafty and duplicitous, always scheming and plotting ten steps ahead. It behooved him to think similarly.

They needed each other now, for the moment, but when they no longer did?

The eldar was clearly planting the seeds it would harvest when that time would come. He had not missed its own appraisal of him from time to time, when it thought he was not looking. The way it would examine his armor, the way its eyes would hunt for the joints and seams where a blade might find purchase. Several times he had turned and caught it quickly glancing away, pretending to not have been eyeing his back. Surely sizing up where it might sink a dagger.

He was especially careful when he would, rare though it may be, bathe. Despite his augmentations and their ability to cleanse his body, still would gore, dirt and sweat accumulate. One must always maintain their weapons, and his body was the greatest the Emperor had blessed him with. He ensured the eldar was well aside when he would be at his most vulnerable (though the thought of ever being truly 'vulnerable' was laughable), keeping always his chainsword close at hand.

For now, both of them alone and marooned in this vision of primeval hell, a second pair of eyes, of arms, no matter the source, was necessary to escape.

He had saved the eldar many times, interceding to deflect blows that would have claimed its head or ambushes that would have shredded its fragile body. In its own turn, the eldar, as much as he was loathe to admit it, had saved him. When he had slipped into a sus-an coma, purging violent toxins from his body after a vicious bite, the eldar had guarded his insensate form for two days. He still mistrusted its promise that it had not touched nor examined his wargear.

Their goals aligned, for now.

But what it was doing to him.

He would catch himself watching it. Out of the corner of his eye, as it would rehearse combat stances. As it would meditate he would find himself examining its form, cataloguing the shape of its limbs. For no reason that he could discern, and always the feeling would build, the directionless need for violence.

Was that it, perhaps?

Was it the innate hypnoconditioning from his youth? Was it the knowledge that he was, by small measures, betraying his oaths? Suffer not the alien to live, nor the witch, the mutant.

Yet he had suffered this eldar. This xeno.

Perhaps it was that reflexive implanted guideline, buried beneath his iron resolve and mental discipline that was percolating up through his consciousness.

But for his Chapter, the Jade Host, the eldar had never been a great threat. The orks, the greenskins: they were the hated foe of his Chapter. For a moment he imagined if this eldar was a greenskin instead, and nearly laughed at the thought of working alongside such a beast.

The eldar at least had a concept of civilization and honor, warped though it may be in their alien minds. He was sure his khan would understand.

But it bothered him. Niggled.

A distraction.

All of it.

He snarled, and took up his chainsword. Meditation in motion would put it aside.

* * *

It did not. Never permanently. Many days later and many many kilometers behind them, he and the eldar sat in a deep cave, the entrance hidden by cunningly arranged branches and deadfalls. It had aided him as he hauled stumps and bracken and obliterated their trail, showing an unexpected knowledge and experience with fieldcraft. He recognized strength in the thin limbs of the alien, strength enough to perhaps not match but vie with his own Emperor-given musculature.

And now they sat to either side of the cave, a dim lamp between them. He had hazarded the item from his pack, needing at least some light in order to clean and replace the teeth of his chainsword. He had been forced to hack into the dense carapace of a tyranid creature the day before, sawing and chewing into the meat of the creature to finally slay it. Two dozen loosened teeth and a further dozen snapped free had robbed his blade of much of its sting.

Across from him the eldar was helmetless again, letting its long hair rest unbound across its shoulders in a flow of dark waves that blended into the deep shadows. It was meditating, a common action for it, sitting with legs folded across one another, palms resting in its lap. Utterly at ease, apparently, and secure. It twisted at him that this alien could feel so safe here – surely it knew it was ultimately a foe of mankind, proscribed by the Imperium. His eyes scoured the relaxed shape of its face, the thin brows arced over shuttered eyes, thin nose, the angular curve of its jaw that elongated and stretched its face beyond human norm. The strange eyes, nearly devoured by dark pupils. The familiar irritation and restlessness grew in his breast.

Ignoring it, he narrowed his eyes, musing on the incongruity of their partnership. Of the circumstances.

He was clad in what could only generously be called half his armor now. From the waist up it was merely his bodysuit, ripped in a dozen places to expose the still-healing wounds beneath. He had grudgingly abandoned his carapace after an encounter with a carnifex. The eldar had argued with him long, ridiculing his 'sentimentality' and gesturing at the enormous gaping holes in his chestpiece where the creature had bitten and lifted him clean from the ground.

In the end he'd agreed, and refusing the eldar's help, had disengaged the chest piece and related armor panels, reverently placing them in a glade and kneeling to thank the machine spirit for its unflagging service, and saving his life one final time. It had done its job, keeping the probing teeth from biting too deeply into his body. He had bled freely, gashed down to his fused ribcage, but no deeper.

The reactor was thankfully undamaged, and so he managed for a time in a cut-down harness.

Then he had lost one pauldron to a ripper swarm, and then the other to an unexpected ravener.

He'd finally had to leave the reactor behind when it, punctured through by venom-spitters, threatened overload.

More and more armor followed over the days, and weeks. The eldar was not spared either – the greaves and thighplate of its left leg had been hurriedly stripped off after a splash of caustic acids nearly ate through to its flesh in seconds.

This world was consuming them, in little bits, cracking open their armored shells first.

Next would be the slow erosion of their flesh.

There was no thought of giving up. His Chapter would find him.

What drove the eldar he did not know, but it seemed as unflagging as he, loathe as he was to lay any praise on it.

Now he had but his greaves and boots, along with a makeshift harness rig to carry his weapons and supplies. The eldar retained its helmet and chestpiece and one gauntlet, but little else. It too had rigged a harness of tattered material from its ragged skirt, a sling to carry its shuriken rifle. He had no bolts and his plasma pistol retained at best two full-power shots. His chainsword that he labored over had but a few remaining replacement teeth. The eldar's shuriken cannon, luckily repaired, still seemed to have enough ammunition. Its own powered blade was long since lost, cracked in two. Now it sported a long claw from a deathleaper, the joint cracked off and wrapped in leather for grip. The tyranid blade proved as adept against its own kin as it did against the swarm's foes.

Food was in no supply, but he was Astartes. He ate what he needed – leaves, the flesh of hunted animals. The tyranid infestation here, the dregs from the broken tendril, had not subsumed the local wildlife and plantlife. Perhaps they would in time but this world was hardy. The eldar seemed able to sustain itself on gathered roots and similar, but he had spared little thought to its needs. It had accepted some meat from him in the past, though.

He slotted another tooth into place, locking it in position, running a tattered oilcloth across the workings. Soon he too would be reduced to scavenged weapons, and rude, makeshift clubs. His Chapter would find him.

The eldar continued to meditate. It did that often, given the opportunity. It would seemingly withdraw into itself, distancing from the world.

His fists flexed, reflexively, grabbing at nothing as he ran his eyes over the alien again. For reasons he could not identify, there was something that simply kept drawing his attention back. Perhaps it was a weakness he had not noticed. Some flaw in the form of the alien that he could not pin down. That would be worthy to determine – some unknown physical flaw or malformation in the eldar. Perhaps such knowledge would make this entire ordeal worthwhile.

So he had played at scrutiny.

There was nothing he could note, beyond the obvious. Not as strong nor massive as an Astartes (and for good reason, for blessed was he by the Emperor and his Primarch). Much more nimble and lithe, though, comparatively, and stronger indeed than a baseline human. But nothing glaring, no true critical flaws. No Akilluys' Heel to exploit. It was not that then, that drew his attention time and again.

What then?

He clenched his teeth and tore his gaze away, feeling his secondary heart slowly beat harder, as if preparing for combat.

With practiced focus, he schooled it back into subdued functioning. Another tooth slotted home. Another pass of the tattered cloth.

What was it?

He wanted to look back at the eldar. Wanted to not. It was like the ache of a missing tooth. A cog slipped in the machine that clicked when it should have clacked and was impossible to ignore. An oddity in a world he understood that he couldn't put aside.

His fingers itched as if for the hilt of his chainsword or grip of his bolter, but neither quite slotted home in his mind. His pulse elevated again, as if for combat, and he tamped it down.

He was…agitated.

Almost as if it felt his attention upon it, its almond eyes cracked open, green meeting directly his brown, a brief slow smile creasing its lips. Unwilling to back down from a challenge, he glowered back at it, willing it to feel his irritation. A strange spark of adrenaline he ignored, letting his body quickly filter out the chemical. As he expected, the alien could not hold his stare and returned to its meditation, eyes sliding shut again, though a ghost of the smile remained.

Ridiculous, but it gave him an idea. The sudden burst of adrenaline, the challenge-

Perhaps…

Perhaps that was it.

He had not fought the eldar.

* * *

Their pact had been made upon initial meeting, months ago.

The tyranid swarms, broken, leaderless, were still deadly beyond reckoning. Gone to ground on the feudal world of Incandry's Rest, he and the rest of his squad had been deployed to secure a critical Imperial asset. A relic of the Chapter, left within a shrine in the principle city, the only urban concession on the world. The tyranid survivors from the breaking of the splinter fleet were not supposed to divert so unexpectedly. It was critical to retrieve it before they would, in their bestial rampage, tarnish the reputation of his Chapter. They had been unable to deploy into the capital due to the rain of infestor pods. Many had been intercepted and shot down, but still more made landfall and the capital had become a hunting ground.

His squad had landed in the outskirts, many kilometers away.

Shortly after, the vox-net had collapsed and all word from orbit was lost. It was the last they had seen any Imperial presence.

The tyranids had been unrelenting in their hunt as if driven mad and determined to gain their revenge by the slaughter of his brothers. His _arbana_ had fallen, in a brutal, tearing skirmish that drug on for hours and hours as they tried to fall back to the foothills, to establish a strong point. Until in the end only he remained.

That was when they had met. The eldar, alone as well, last of its kind on the world, had ambushed the ambushers. It felled a lictor and another in as many seconds. He had exploited the opening, charging the alpha of the pack and bearing it down in a brutal brawl.

They had agreed in that glade. Their causes aligned. The eldar had business on Incandry's Rest as well, business that was parallel but not opposed to the Imperium. Two goals that might be achieved as one.

So they had never fought. Perhaps that was it. He had spent months in the presence of another warrior, a fierce one, he could admit, but they had not drawn blades against one another. Not tested the other, personally. He felt a need toward…violence, perhaps, but not death. Directed toward the eldar. Perhaps that was it.

They needed to fight.

* * *

'I must fight you.' The eldar looked up from its project, mending a tear in its makeshift harness. The strange, slanted, almond shaped eyes were too large to be human but too human to be truly alien. Was there no part of this xeno that did not unsettle him?

'Speak sense,' it said, a frown drawing down the soft ends of its brows, the slightest of creases in the smooth skin of its forehead.

'I cannot concentrate around you. There is…tension. I must fight you.' He tossed down its makeshift blade. 'First blood, no farther.'

'You…wish to duel. Now.'

'I said I cannot concentrate. I admit weakness to an alien. Do not question me.' He growled, rolling his shoulders. Looking down at the eldar, its face upturned to look up at him pushed the feeling higher. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides, not knowing what to do. He felt the need to reach out, to enfold its neck with his hands. To…he clenched his teeth again, because it ded not make sense.

The eldar looked him over, slowly, petulantly, from his boots to his hair, much longer now and tied back in a knot. Slowly it rose to its feet, one hand wrapped about the claw. He found he could not look away from the motion, jaw clenched. At full height, the eldar was scarcely a head shorter than he, taller indeed than most humans.

Face-to-face, his secondary heart kicked up again. Only a foot of space separated them and he looked over the inhuman architecture of the eldar. Its lips pressed together, brow furrowed. On a human, this would be suspicion or confusion. He was not sure what it meant on an eldar. Its hair was long and black, loose where his was tied. Its eyes were darting back and forth, as if searching his face for something. Its eyes, incidentally, he finally saw had a thin rim of iris about the broad pupuls: deep green with…blue. Perhaps. He was frozen, realizing he had never been this close to an alien before – at least, not one that was not imminently dead.

He was not sure how to feel about it.

'I think you are lying, mon'keigh, and I do not think you realize that you are.' He bared his teeth, bringing up one hand to plant on the eldar's chest and shoved it back. To its credit, it simply took a long, smooth stride backward, otherwise unfazed.

'You dare? You question my honor?" He ignores the after-shock in his hand, the feeling of the eldar beneath his palm lingering strangely. How could it declare him a liar? What could he be lying about? What could it even think, in that demented, twisted alien mind, that he would be lying about?

He was not certain that they needed to duel, to fight. But he was certain that he must try, for his own sanity. That was no lie.

It cast aspersions, and he should not be surprised. The eldar ran a hand along the flat of the claw, not looking away from him.

'My apologies, I do not mean offense. Our languages are different. There can be mistakes. Let us duel then, and restore your balance.' He nodded, willing to accept the excuse for what it was, but not forgetting the words.

* * *

The duel did not help.

For a time, they moved about each other. He held his deactivated chainsword in one hand, the other loose and free. In contrast, the eldar takes the claw in a two-handed, sure grip. They circled and the motion felt strange in his cobbled together demi-armor. The eldar had not replaced its helmet. He missed his _qua din_, left behind on the strike cruiser. The longer length and perfect balance of the polearm would have served him better, here.

They each made short, probing strikes. Measuring the other, gauging responses and the quickness of reflex. He found the eldar quick, as he knew it to be, but it seemed to be something else when it was directed toward him. Its legs were in constant motion, shifting weight, seeming to never come to a full rest. The claw waved and nodded, weaving in the air between them, long by half than his chainsword. A greater reach, but not a greater strength.

The probing gave way to heavier strikes as he pushed to batter down his opponent's guard. It was quicker but he was stronger, and that would be key. But the eldar would melt away, letting the claw slide the strike aside just enough to miss. Then the return slice would be unexpectedly high, or dart daringly low to skim the dirt floor of the cave. In the dim light, their fuzzed shadows danced against the walls, the darkness an added element to the duel. Outside was night, and no doubt horde of malignant creatures hungering for their deaths, but his focus tunneled into the alien within blade range, but not an 'enemy'. The strikes sped up, ripostes and parries and lunges blending together into nearly a fluid dance of motion. He realized as they spun and struck that they had learned each other's forms and styles through the months of endless pursuit.

It had become complementary. Two parts to a whole.

With a start, as he reflexively dodged past a swing, he realized there was a synchronicity here that he had not felt outside of his brothers. Moments in their long trek flashed through his mind – the eldar crouching low as he swung, full strength, chainsword whistling just above its head to cleave a ripper. The eldar springing past him, using his larger size and mass as a springboard to vault onto a thickly armored tyranid and punch through its braincase with two precise shots.

It was jarring enough and dangerous enough to his self-image to shock him out of his focus, slowing his feet, and the eldar's claw scored a long red line across his chest.

He dimly heard the eldar's exclamation, loud and unrestrained as it planted the claw in the loam, too spun up in his thoughts for it to register it or the already-fading sting on his chest.

This alien and he.

A partnership.

A mutual trust and understanding.

Like his brothers.

Impossible.

_Impossible._

He wanted to rip the thoughts from his brain, to reach his fingers into the treacherous meat of his mind and excise the very concept of such a thing.

It could not be. It could never be! Suffer not the alien to live! His hearts hammered, cold sweat prickling across his body beneath his bodysuit.

Through the haze of his shock and horror he saw the eldar advance toward him, empty handed. There was an odd motion to its steps, one he had not seen, a fluidity that spoke of something other than war. Its eyes were searching again, scanning across his face and chest as it came closer.

'Stop-' he choked out, barely trusting his tongue to work. 'No closer. No closer!' The eldar paused, hands outstretched, palms up.

'Do you understand? I do not deny it. I cannot.'

The words made no sense. It knew his thoughts? It could see the impossibility of their comradeship?

'I do not…I cannot. I cannot- How can this be? How?' He dropped to a knee, legs suddenly and inexplicably unstrung. He was Astartes. Geneforged. A true son of his Chapter, as loyal as any brother to wear the colors. Nothing in the galaxy could match him.

How could this alien?

How could it…how could he…the synergy. The eldar crouched before him, reaching out a gentle hand to place on his broad shoulder. He could feel its touch, even through the two layers of bodyglove. The heat of the eldar's hand on his trapezius, the strange tension that spread throughout him.

'What have you done to me? What have you done?'

It had to be its fault. Its witchery. Some manner of…of corruption. It did this. It reached into his head. It twisted his thoughts and unmanned his surety. He was Astartes. Geneforged.

'I have done nothing. You do not understand. I sense it. There is so much you do not know. There is so much that is lost for who you are. What you are.' He looked up to meet its eyes, his soft brown irises to its electric-green. 'I can explain.'

He reached out, clasping a hand to the back of its neck, holding it in place. Through the eldar's bodysuit he could feel the muscle, the little bump of vertebrae. If he squeezed. If he but squeezed. It twitched under his touch, a full body ripple.

'You will explain, and you will explain now what you have done to me.' The eldar nodded, restricted by the hand at the nape of its neck. It knelt too, slowly, avoiding any sudden motion, until they were face to face.

'My people – we have a war-mask.' Its voice was husky and low, not a whisper. 'In battle, we let the war-mask take us. It becomes all we are. All other cares, concerns – they are gone. Eaten by the war-mask, or held hidden and at bay until the battle is done. All that matters is battle. Death. We feel nothing else. But it does not mean those feelings are gone. Just…pushed aside.' The eldar pressed a hand to his chest, right above his heart.

'You have never put aside your war-mask. You are your war-mask, but it can never be all you are. It can only suppress, but not hide.'

'Speak sense-' he growled, a lecture on eldar culture the farthest thing from his mind at the moment.

'I am speaking sense, if you would listen,' the eldar hissed through its teeth. 'I am saying that your war-mask is receding and you are feeling things it had hidden. You do not understand them, so you only view them as you had all things before. In terms of combat. War.' He exerts the slightest pressure on the eldar's neck, and its eyes narrow in irritation, shoulders twitching as if to throw him off. What he was feeling? What could it possibly know or understand about what he was feeling, about this endless agitation he felt around it and how – how he had allowed himself to trust the alien, to let down his guard, to-

'I am saying that I understand you because I feel the same, mon'keigh, though I cannot understand why.'

His surprise released his grip on the eldar's neck as he recoiled.

What?

It felt the same way? It was as shocked and disturbed by trusting him as he was of trusting it?

'And if you will not listen when I try to speak then I will – I will -' its nostrils flared as it sucked in a breath '_nh'ain sae inthaim_ – find another way.' The eldar darted forward, simultaneously pulling on his shoulder. He started at the sudden, swift motion, surely an attack, but it was quick, quicker than he and –

The eldar pressed its lips against his.

For a very long, frozen moment, the all he could see was the eldar's closed eyes, the loose strands of hair dangling across its face. All he could feel was its nose alongside his, the pressure of soft lips against his own.

Every thought slammed to halt.

He had no frame for this.

No reference, no understanding.

Was it attacking? Was this some form of assault he had never seen? Abstractly, distantly, he was aware of this action among humans. He had seen guardsmen embrace and cheer, he had seen their faces pressed together when he and his brothers had broken through ork lines, when they had cracked the back of a waaugh and reinforced the hive city on Itram. He hadn't quite understood the meaning then, and simply marked it as an unexplained cultural thing. The eldar was doing it to him.

And…and…

There was something that stopped him from shoving it away. That held his hands loose and open at his sides, achingly empty, utterly lost. Its lips parted around his, the warmth of them embracing his lower lip and tugging, even as something soft and wet seemed to flit out and touch his mouth- And then the eldar retreated, opening its eyes and licking its lips. Its pupils were surprisingly wide, irises retreating before them, an odd coloration rising across its nose and cheeks.

'Do you still not understand?'

His mouth worked, lips moving, tingling from the recent touch (poison?), but no words seemed to shake free from his brain.

The eldar took one of his hands in both of its own, raising it to its face and pressing lips to his palm.

'You are attracted to me. But your war-mask does not understand. That is why you are cannot focus. It cannot describe what you feel.'

He tore his hand free and fled deeper in to the cave, away from the dim lamp and the kneeling eldar and all the confusing, contradictory thoughts that remained.

* * *

In the depths of the cave, where the ceiling finally ran down to meet the welcoming floor, he sat. Leaning against the wall, feeling the tickle of roots poking through the shale.

You are attracted to me.

He didn't understand what that meant. 'Attracted'. He knew the word, yes, but the context –

It was…accurate? But the meaning was insufficient. Yes. He was attracted to the eldar. The alien drew his attention frequently. That was the whole root of the issue! It was no revelation he was attracted to the eldar, it was precisely what he knew to be the problem!

And the thing with the lips – what did that mean? He rubbed a thick thumb against his lips, feeling the dry skin, the ridges of mostly-healed splits. He could still feel a ghost of the warmth and softness of the eldar's there. Why?

And his hand. He raised his other, his right hand, flexing it, looking down at his palm. A broad scar ran the length of it, shiny and bright. An overheated plasma pistol coil, when he had slapped it aside before it could kill him. Burned right through the ceramite, melted it to him. Years and years ago. The nerves had mostly grown back, but he felt as if he could tell the exact dimensions of the eldar's lips on his palm.

Why?

And with distance between them, many many meters of distance and darkness besides – the tension had not vanished. Still both hearts thundered and a tension filled his chest. Were his augmentations failing? Some poison, some virus of the tyranids slowly chewing into him? What was this?

In a flash of anger he clenched a fist and hammered it into the wall, thuncking into the shale and sending flakes flying and soil spuming. The sharp edged shards barely pricked his dense flesh, yet the contrast – the softest touch of the eldar and still he felt its lips on his! What had it done to him!

He growled, bassy and deep in his chest, shut his eyes, and began to recite litanies.

* * *

Two nights later, still in the same cave, he studied the eldar. It was sleeping this time and they had not spoken since he returned many hours later. It simply appraised him, before shaking its head and turning away. The eldar lay stretched out on its side, head pillowed on an arm, the wan light of the lume casting long shadows. The tyranids were still beyond, and in silence by the exit he had lain for hours and listened to them searching. Hunting. Yet they had not found the cave and so it remained a refuge for now. It galled him, hiding underground, but his mission was more important. Reach the capital. Reclaim the relic. Find his Chapter.

He could not fail, not after everything.

He studied the eldar. Its armor was neatly organized in a pile, leaving it in a bodyglove, same as he. The likeness to humanity was jarring. His eyes followed the shape of its body, from shoulder to hip to toe. The familiar agitation built again, the memory of its lips on his returning as he studied.

It was because it was vulnerable, it had to be. He was being told to kill it. End it.

Kill it and stop all the confusion, remove the problem. He was Astartes. Geneforged. He did not need to rely on another, let alone a xeno. The trust they had was false. A sham. Kill it.

He pinched his eyes shut, gritting teeth, and behind his lids he saw it decapitate a lictor that was poised to jump atop his back. He saw it spin and unleash a storm of projectiles that reduced a ripper swarm to so much mulch, giving him a much needed reprieve to reload his bolter and send three bolts downrange to put down a biovore.

He saw the eldar as they dueled the carnifex. How it danced around the beast's claws, how it evaded massive jaws and leapt above the scything tail. He saw the eldar as it hacked at the carnifex's limbs, freeing him from its jaws before they could clamp down. He saw it toss him his last melta charge, so that he could punch it down the beast's throat. He saw himself grab the eldar by the waist and bodily sling it behind a tree as the carnifex detonated messily, hurling chitin plates with enough force to ping off his armor.

He saw it save him half a hundred times, and he saw himself save it the same number.

No. If he was going to kill the eldar it would be awake and it would have a weapon in hand. He owed it that much.

* * *

'This is foolish.' The eldar sighed, as they replaced their armor. For him, simply his greaves and boots and makeshift harness. For the eldar, the chestplate and gauntlet and tall helmet.

'No, the main force has moved on. We will only face the remnants.'

'That is not what I am speaking of,' the alien sighed, slinging its rifle over a shoulder. He ignored it and led the way from the cave, shoving the trunks and brambles aside.

* * *

They reached the capital a week later.

All was ruins.

As a feudal world, Incandry's Rest had but a single city remotely worthy of the name. Seat of the Imperial Governor and the sole reliable spaceport, the capital of Weatherheart was a village compared to the mighty hives of other worlds. The largest buildings, a scant dozen stories, were piles of rubble and shattered duracrete. There were no bodies as they walked the streets, a grim fact of the invaders. The devourer earned its name well.

'The Shrine is at the city's center. We make for there.' The eldar shrugged, picking around the acid-smoothed puddles of metal that were makeshift barricades and Guard strongpoints.

'My task draws me there all the same.'

'You have not spoken of it. Of what brings eldar to a world of the Imperium.'

'A simple matter. Nothing that threatens you or your kind. It might even help you.' He grunted, keeping up the pace. At least the eldar, unlike mortal humans, could keep up with the pace of an Astartes.

'Ware our flanks. This city is not yet dead.'

But nothing emerged to challenge them. They stalked down empty streets, the flattop cracked and weeds left unchecked for many weeks already poking through. He knew from the lack of dust and small debris that the capital had fallen months previous. Whatever defense had been mustered had been unable to withstand the onslaught of the tyranids.

Without the guiding force of their tendril fleet, the tyranids here were more bestial, less driven. They were not attempting to strip all consumable matter – they were hunting and breeding like beasts. He saw vestiges of spawning pools, dried up and abandoned. A handful of Leman Russ from the Governor's barracks. The sunlight shone through the gaping holes burned in their armor by acid and claw, drawing strange patterns on the streets. No bones, no bodies. Just empty silence and the wind through the ruins.

'Perhaps they have moved on. Gone into the jungles in search of more prey. We encountered enough there to support the theory.' The eldar was striding backwards with remarkable alacrity, each footfall finding sure support despite the crumbling nature of the roadway. Its own steps were silent, in contrast to the low thudding of his booted tread.

'Or the Devourer is lying in wait. Vigilance, xeno. Always vigilance.' The words rang hollow in his mind, though, directed as they were to an alien he took as ally.

* * *

Another night passed in the depths of an abandoned warehouse. Once more he had his lume set up, the dull orange light thrown across the moldering papers and plaster fragments shaken loose from the ceiling. The eldar was meditating, as usual, though he had noted its frequent glances his way throughout the day. It was growing more and more common, its appraisal of him. Bolder, less hidden.

With their final goals nearly in reach, it had to be planning its betrayal.

Sizing him up, preparing.

The tension and agitation he felt around it had only worsened. Now he constantly found himself gazing at the eldar, all thoughts fled. The strange desire for directionless violence never waned, never went away. The sense-memory of the eldar's lips constantly returned, as did the sensation of its hand on his shoulder.

He was clearly going mad.

'How many more nights must we endure like this?' The eldar spoke suddenly, fracturing the silence. He twitched, realizing once again he had been staring at the motionless xeno for a time untold.

'The shrine cannot be farther. Whatever goal you have must be near enough as well.'

'That is not what I meant.' The eldar sighed, uncrossing its legs and shifting to kneel, hands on knees. 'I speak of the constant denial of what we cannot deny. This is exhausting, mon'keigh.'

'I have no idea of what you speak.'

'Truly you do not? I think you lie again.' This time its imprecation did not phase him.

'We have spoken of questioning my honor. Watch your tongue, xeno.' It rolled its eyes, gathering its long legs beneath it before standing. With him sitting, cross-legged, the eldar for once looked down on him from across the lume.

'You are as a clueless child. Isha preserve me.' It advanced around the lume, until it stood just before him, looking down the length of its body to him. He made no move to stand or respond, curious as to what strange thoughts were driving it. Clearly, something gnawed at the alien just as it did him, and despite his exasperation at even the slightest implication of similarity, he had to admit interest. Then, like the other night many days ago, the eldar did something he entirely did not expect.

It dropped into his lap.

Knees to either side of his hips, it knelt in his lap, resting on his crossed legs. His hands immediately lashed out, grabbing its shoulders, ready to throw it away. To so boldly and so fearlessly intrude on his person – To dare to touch him so blithely –

But the touch of the eldar, the weight of it on his thighs, something stayed his hands. And so he was frozen, his hands engulfing its slim but muscular shoulders. The feel of its body through the bodyglove – his mind ran in circles, shouting to crush it, demanding him to – to –

'What is the meaning of this, xeno? Why do you intrude on my person?' Irritatingly, it simply shushed him, placing its hands on his chest, the surprising feeling of the long fingers against his bodyglove loosening the tension in his arms, holding the alien at bay.

'I am curious,' it whispered, 'Our end is in sight, and if luck holds we may soon be parted. I will not have regrets.'

Exploiting the opening as if in a duel, the eldar leaned in, and pressed its lips to his again.

And once again he was transfixed by the sensation as if all feeling had vanished from his body save for the warm and soft touch on his mouth. Like before he felt the wetness of its tongue flick against his unmoving lips, before the eldar withdrew to look him in the eyes.

'It is a kiss, mon'keigh. A kiss, to show interest. Do you not know it?' Its voice was husky, almost hoarse, and he felt the gust of its breath across his cheeks. His mind spinning, confused, warring emotions and impulses tearing through him, he could only murmur in confusion: 'I do not.'

'Then pay attention.' It leaned in again, capturing his mouth with its own, and he felt the way its lips moved against his, how they embraced and moved, how they entreated with his own, motionless. Almost..questioning. Probing. The eldar retreated again, gaze searching over his face, flicking down at his lips and back up, over and over.

'So lost. Your war-mask is strong.' It leaned in again, and as its warm lips found his he found himself attempting to match the motion. He was Astartes, and he would not be bested by some xeno, even if he did not understand the action. His mouth opened to meet the eldar, and to his surprise he felt and heard a low grown from the alien as their mouths met, finally both in motion and reciprocating. Its tongue flicked against his lips, wetting them with foreign saliva, the taste strange and unexpected. As if by reflex, he tasted his lips, his own tongue leaving the confines of his mouth and – the eldar grasped it, the tip of it, between its lips.

His secondary heart beat faster, spinning up as if in combat. He felt the flush of energy along his limbs, but could not discern the source. He was simply sitting, with an alien in his lap enacting some strange ritual. With a nibble of its teeth against his lower lip (which drew a surprised grunt from him), the eldar again drew back.

'You are learning. Clearly your kind are not as simple as you seem.' It seemed almost amused by the insult, the corners of its mouth quirking in a gesture that, in a human, might be a smirk.

'I still do not understand. What is the purpose of this, of this…this.' The eldar sighed, closing its eyes and shaking its head, hair rippling. 'I sense no threat but – I cannot find the purpose.'

'Trust me. I will lead, you will see.

It went against every fiber of his being, every tenet of his teachings. Yet after so many months, no matter his reservations, he had to admit that if the eldar truly wanted him dead (outside of future betrayal), it could have done so several times. And much more directly than some convoluted plot that had it easily within reach of him, vulnerable and unarmored. And he had to admit his own curiosity.

'I would not be called ignorant.' He muttered, irritated to have found a gap in his knowledge that this alien knew instead.

'Good,' the eldar whispered, and the brush of its exhalation across his skin was strange but…not unwelcome as it leaned back in.

For a time its lips explored his, and he clumsy reciprocated. Curious as to the action, driven too by the odd pull that seemed to well up in him to match the motion. He bit at its own lip, worrying the lower between his teeth. Lightly – he meant no injury, and catalogued the eldar's reaction: a hiss and redoubled intensity of its 'kiss'. All the while a strange pressure grew and grew in the back of his mind, a cloudiness that sunk into his limbs and left him oddly lethargic.

Not for the first time did he wonder about poison, but the symptoms did not align.

Mouth wet and open, the elder leaned back, the feeling of its rear against his thighs, the pressure and weight of its body drew a curious sense of satisfaction that he could not identify. The softness of its body through the smoothness of its bodysuit, the flex of muscles as it shifted. It had begun slowly rocking in place as their mouths had explored each other's. He remembered it mentioned feeling the same agitation as he, and wondered if this inability to sit still was an aspect of it. Some manner of relief.

'You learn quickly,' the eldar mused, and reached out to run a warm finger down his cheek, to rest against his lower lip. An odd impulse took him, and he sucked it into his mouth, tasting the digit and running his tongue along it. The eldar's skin, was, in comparison to its lips, mostly tasteless, and he felt the ridges of its fingertip on his tongue.

'_Very_ quickly,' it murmured, rocking in his lap even more. The pressure in the rear of his mind was almost painful now, yet he did not shy away nor fear it.

He was Astartes. Any trial he could overcome.

He released its finger as it withdrew with a soft pop, a trail of saliva connecting them. Oddly, it took its finger into its own mouth, as if to reciprocate the experience.

'Touch me, mon'keigh.' Not quite understandind, he frowned.

'I already have. Several times.'

The eldar rolled its eyes again and he felt a flash of irritation at its constant haughty superiority before it reached out, taking his right wrist in both hands, and placing his hand on its chest. Through the silken bodyglove, he could feel the hammering heart of the eldar: a rapid staccato beat. Much quicker and softer than his own duotone, thudding counterpart. The flesh was beneath soft, supple, molding around his broad fingers as he pressed against it. Even through the bodyglove it was remarkable in its texture, like nothing living he had encountered before. An odd desire to feel it, skin-to-skin, drifted through his head.

Curious – he knew of the differences between male and female mortals yet it had always been a passing thing. The difference in dress noted as simple fact akin to the number of exits in a room or the disposition of an enemy deployment. Females generally emphasized their chest, drawing attention there with garments and adornments. Necklaces and chains and the like, draping across the exposed skin. He had once seen an aquila pendant nearly lost in the considerable breasts of an Inquisitor and had been curious as to the purpose if the icon was not clearly visible. It had not been his place to ask, however. With his hand pressed now to the eldar's chest, watching its lidded eyes as he gently pressed and examined the softness of its breast, he suspected he could formulate a hypothesis.

'This feels…pleasant, to you.'

'It does,' the eldar said, 'is it not pleasant for you?'

'I admit it is…intriguing.' He reached up, taking the other breast in hand and pushed them toward and apart from each other, seeing the bodyglove bunch and conform to the shifting flesh beneath it. The eldar hummed deep in its throat as he did so, leaning and arching its back to grant him better access. It truly was intriguing. It felt…strangely right, in the same way the well-worn grip of his bolter did, or the satisfying heft of a power sword did. He cupped both in his palms, feeling the surprising weight.

'It is as I said. Your war-mask is not all you are.'

Beneath the bodyglove, he felt two harder points, rigid protrusions in an otherwise soft and yielding expanse. He pinched at one with clumsy fingers, the bodyglove too sleek to allow for grasp, and it slid beneath his grasp. He cocked an eyebrow, recognizing it likely as a nipple, being in a similar place as it would on a human, and stroked his thumbs across both breasts, over the visible bumps on its suit. The eldar trembled, a full body quiver that set his secondary heart beating faster. The pressure behind his eyes deepened, like a tensing band drawing to its limits.

And he realized the itch was gone – the itch that made him clench his fists every time he looked at the eldar, that drove him to distraction with fleeting desires for violence. Having the eldar beneath his touch, running his hands over its body – he stroked his right hand down from its breast, feeling the transition from pliable to the harder expanse of its abdominals.

Why was that what satisfied his agitation?

His musing was interrupted as the eldar reached behind itself, shoulders rolling to puff out its chest farther (displaying more openly the mounds of its breasts, a sight that he discovered was distracting), as it worked at something. Then its bodyglove fluffed and relaxed, baggy and loose and it shrugged both arms free of the sleeves. Then it rolled it down, both breasts bouncing free to stand tall against its ribs. The sight of its naked torso drew his eyes in a way he could not describe, even as his breaths came shorter and mouth dried. The overpowering pressure in his head yet still mounted but he pushed it aside roughly, biting down at the growing pain behind his eyes as he reached out, abnormally delicately, to stroke his fingers from collarbone down to the peaked points of its nipples, straining outward atop each breast. He…needed to continue, for reasons he could not explain. Even through the building headache, whatever it meant.

He noted a large gemstone, glowing from within, that nestled between its breasts, on a long golden chain. For a moment he almost laughed, remembering the aquila necklace. He stroked fingers across the defined abdominals, watching as they twitched and flexed under his ministrations, stroked along the velvet skin of her waist back up to cup its breasts, fingers sinking into the soft and pliable shapes. A thumb dipped into the cavity of its navel. Its skin was remarkably soft and sleek, and he could not quite cease his motions.

The eldar groaned, shifting its hips to press its groin flush against his and he felt an unexpected shift and throb from between his legs. This time, skin-to-skin, the eldar felt almost feverishly hot under his touch. It was immensely more gratifying to massage and feel its breasts directly, though why this was mystified him. Physical contact held very little for him, in all his years. Never had touching another felt so…true. So right, somehow. The alien was clearly enjoying the attention, and the shifting between his legs intensified as the eldar, using its leverage in his lap, ground its hips down against his.

He realized the source – his penis was pulsing in time with his heartbeat, lengthening and straining within the confines of his tight bodyglove. He had never felt similar before, and dropped his hands to press one to his crotch in surprise, indeed confirming the hardened length there.

'What is-' the eldar laughed at his confusion, a high, bright sound, and leaned in to press its lips to his again. Another kiss. A thin hand joined his at his groin, wrapping around his bigger digits to draw him reluctantly away, then the eldar's other fingers dug into his bodysuit directly over his shaft, and he gasped aloud at a sudden jolt of unexpected sensation.

And the pressure in his head, in his mind, the drawn-tight strand finally pulled to its ultimate length and snapped, almost a physical crack behind the eyes and he saw stars, gasping, before a flood of emotion he did not understand broke across him. The eldar's hands at his crotch became…necessary, as critical to his being as a bolter in his hand. The sight of its breasts swaying before him was as enticing as an ork with its back turned. And the wide eyed, flushed expression written across its angular face fed some primordial urge inside him.

Whatever change occurred must have been visible, because the eldar licked her lips, a slow smile spreading across her face.

'There. The war-mask is gone. You are a man.'

'I have always been a man-'

'You were a space marine: the man hidden beneath but the desire for a woman runs strong.' She smirked and clenched fingers around his shaft. Even through the thick bodysuit he wanted to shout at the foreign feeling.

'I…I want you, but I do not know how. Or why. There is…it is not violence but it is, it is not – I wish to lay hands on you, but I do not wish your death.' A growl forced its way from his chest, irritation at the inability to find words boiling over.

'Lust, mon'keigh', the eldar hissed. 'It is lust. Let me teach you it.'

This time when her mouth found his, tongue exploring, he met her with an unrestrained ardour that saw their tongues clash and teeth find purchase, biting and teething just shy of damaging. It felt like a battle, he realized, seeking to overcome the other, to establish a form of dominance. That he understood.

He did not back down from battles, nor lose them. And he learned quickly the rules of every engagement.

When he grasped the eldar by her hair, fingers twining in the roots to yank her head to the side, burying his face against her skin and biting down at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, he was rewarded with a quiver that ran from her toes to her fingers and a deep whine that boiled from her throat. That he took note of. The primal noise pleased some confusing part of him, and he did it again, leaving red marks on the porcelain skin where his teeth found her.

When she rose on her knees, bringing her breasts to dangle before him, he buried his face in the soft mounds, licking and tasting the flesh, judging his success by the response of the alien in his arms. When he tongue a nipple into his mouth, stroking it with his tongue, tasting the salty sweat and skin he noted again the shiver of the alien in his arms.

He was caught up, swept away, as engaged as he was in any life-or-death duel. He sucked on the nipple in his mouth, drawing back and pulling her breast taut before letting it free with a moist pop, grinning ferally at the sight of the bounce back against her ribs. He did not know why this energized him so, or what the ultimate purpose was, but found he had no wish to stop. That too he noted.

How long they continued like this he could not say: their mouths exploring the other, him lavishing attention on her bare chest before he found her hands worrying at his bodyglove, tugging and pulling.

'I would see your body,' the eldar said with a fixed intensity and he did not think to deny or question. He disengaged his suit from the black carapace, detaching several ports, before stripping off the panels cleanly and tossing them aside. Already she was naked and vulnerable before him, and he was beyond confident to handle a single, weaponless alien should treachery rear its head.

The eldar seemed enraptured by his revealed body, running fingers along the chiseled architecture of his muscles, stroking along the ridges and valleys, running across his broad pectorals.

The feeling was pleasant, though the pressure his penis was exerting was growing painful.

So he stripped off the rest of his bodyglove, an eyebrow raising in curiosity as his shaft bounced free, nodding and standing tall and larger than he expected. Her hands immediately found it, wrapping around his shaft in a soft and hot touch that had him unconsciously bucking his hips into her grasp.

'That is-'

'Pleasant?' the eldar murmured, stroking her fingers from the base of his penis to the tip, sliding the skin back and forth. A warm fingertip stroked beneath the loose flesh, rubbing across the slick head of his penis. He groaned at the sensation – a previously unknown pleasure that he could not describe. It felt…right, like cleansing after a long mission, but far more intense and personal, in a way. All in all, he did not wish it to cease.

But the eldar had other plans in mind, releasing his shaft with one final squeeze that left him twitching before lifting herself from his lap to stand over him. He took the opportunity to adjust himself, shifting to lean against the wall, legs outstretched and separated. He watched, oddly amused, as his penis bounced in the air, a sheen of liquid gathering at the tip. Then he noticed what the eldar was doing and for a moment his tertiary lung inflated for he had ceased breathing.

She had rolled her bodyglove down her long legs and kicked it away, leaving her body bare before him.

He had seen nakedness before. Chaos cultists often exulted in their natural form, befouling themselves and eschewing covering to ensure all saw their depravity. He had seen baseline humans, slain and stripped of their gear for use by the living. He knew of the human body, male and female, at least – in abstract. Yet, something about the naked body of this eldar was different.

She stood before him, looking down, bare and softly backlit by the lume. He found he could not look away, fascinated by her form. The paleness of her skin, creased here and there by old scars. The gooseflesh that pebbled across her body. The way her hair fell loose to tickle at her breasts, which themselves reared proud and firm from her ribs. The ripples of firm muscles down her stomach, leading into an arc from hips that joined together in the curious hollow between her legs. It was an absence, a concavity from what he was most familiar with, made all the more fascinating by the flow of lines from hip to groin and the arc of thighs that framed it. He had never cared to study the female form but now it felt as if a vast and important knowledge had been hidden from him.

A little fold of flesh nestled in that absence, at the apex of her legs, and it was to this that all his attention was drawn like a moth to flame. He wanted her closer, now, with a sudden and unexpected force that almost lifted him from his seated position. The slightest sheen of lume-light reflecting from dampness along her inner thighs brought a rush of saliva to his mouth and his penis twitched in the cold air.

As if she sensed his urgency, she strode back over (and he found the motion of her legs mesmerizing, watching the slide of thighs past one another) and straddled him, lowering herself to once again sit in his lap. His penis caught between her thighs, pressed against her taut stomach. The feeling of her skin against his shaft stoked a fire in his guts, strange urges and desires churning and conflicting. He watched, fascinated, as his penis jumped and trembled, pulsing in time with each pound of his hearts. The liquid that dribbled from the tip (curious, as he felt no urge to urinate) smeared against her skin, sticky.

The overwhelming urge to strike her filled him, but it made no sense – he didn't desire her harm, not right now. But it circled him, urging him to action even as he tamped it down.

'This; this is what we both wanted.'

What emerged from his mouth was not words, per se, but a growl of intention and desire, as his hands found her waist, encircling her almost entirely, so slim was she and so broad his hands. The eldar inhaled a deep breath, rising a little above him so that his penis slid free, throbbing in the void between her thighs. A breathless anticipation struck him, like the time right before a drop, locked up in the dark of a droppod, waiting for the kinetic bang of the impellers -

'I will lead. You are of…formidable size.' Her hands grasped his shaft, slowly stroking up and down as she adjusted her body above him and he let her guide, hating to be led but also hungry to know the answer then – then – His eyes nearly bulged from his head as she slid the tip of his penis into the junction of her legs, an incomparable softness and wetness pressing against him before she bore down.

Soft, hot, wet flesh parted around him as she ground down her hips, his penis pressing into her in a way he could not quite see, not from his vantage, but with an all-encompassing shock that threatened to black out his sight. Her descent was slow and each grasping centimeter that slid along his shaft, pulling him deeper inside picked apart layers of his mental control until he could bear it no longer and hauled her down bodily. His fingers squeezed so tight into her hips that her skin bulged between his grasp but he was beyond notice.

He hilted himself inside her in one quick, sudden motion, shouting aloud at the clenching tunnel that enfolded every inch of his penis, eyes pinched shut at the overpowering pleasure, hearing her harsh cries at the sudden intrusion and feeling the scrabble of her hands on his chest. He felt the weight and cleft of her buttocks pressing against his testicles, felt the clenching of her muscles about his length. For a long moment neither moved as he reveled in the sensation of her around him, squeezing and tight. Such a feeling he had no idea could exist.

It was so perfectly right, so proper, so natural this action, like every part of him sighed a deep gasp of relief at the fulfilling of a desire never even understood until now. When she started to move on him, shifting her hips and stirring him inside her, he opened his eyes again to meet her flushed stare, mouth open and panting. Her entire body was shaking, head to toes, little trembles that he found oddly endearing.

'I-I said,' she stammered, voice cracking, 'mon'keigh, that I would lead. This can be…painful, for me.'

Strangely concerned, he asked if it was.

'No. But do not be too harsh. I will lead.'

And she did, lifting a little at a time and pressing back down. He kept his hands on her, gripping her hips to help lift her body up and press back down before sliding back to knead the elastic meat and dense muscle of her rear. With each thrust and stroke her body pulled against him, as if unwilling to let him free. The pleasure built and built, the driving urge to violence finally making sense: it cohered into a desire to thrust, to penetrate her, again and again, to take her with force unrelenting. To what end…eluded him. Simply for the act itself?

The urge to grip tight her waist and with his greater strength pound at this enticing hole was strong but he tamped it down. This eldar - she was sharing something with him, something that he had never known and his sense of honor despite her alien nature held strong.

The sight of her writhing on him, body undulating smoothly and languidly, pulling almost off his shaft before sliding back down to the very base: breasts bouncing and swaying, rose-colored flush spreading across her chest and shoulders satisfied an immensely and particularly male part of him that he had not known he had.

The hitch and quiver of her breathing as she gasped and moaned little noises with each deep penetration stoked fires in his own chest until he was growling counterpart, grunting with each thrust, hands digging into her backside to grind her hips against his. The urge to press deeper, ever deeper, to fill every possible inch of her and more was almost overwhelming. Another pressure built in him, but this time swelling about the base of his penis, welling up like molten fury from somewhere deep inside him, his testicles nearly aching under the strain, his penis feeling like velvet shod iron, so stiff it was. It felt almost akin to an urgent and nearly painful need to urinate yet promising an infinitely more satisfying relief. Another sensation he had never known but was hungry to experience.

The eldar was louder now, vocalizing in her strange language, mouth falling open with great sighs and gasps, eyes pulled shut in ecstasy. She moaned in her lyrical tongue, a hand sinking between them to caress her body, just above where they joined, stroking and rubbing at apex of the lips spread wide about his girth. Dimly he noted the action as well as her deep-throated purr that followed. The feeling built and built, coiling like a spring, packing pressure into his groin as the overpowering urge to push himself as deeply into this clenching tunnel as he could slowly overrode his control.

He felt himself approaching some precipice, some final point that he could not describe, the urge to urinate-but-not overpowering and his control finally snapped. He clenched both hands about her buttocks, relishing at how they filled his palms, and started hammering his hips upward, yanking her down in a rapid staccato to meet his rising penis.

She shouted aloud but did not combat him, simply digging her nails into his chest, anchoring herself to his broad pectorals as he wildly pounded into her. Sweat poured from him, unexpected for such short exertion, and he felt a wash of sticky fluids trickling down his shaft to soak his testicles as he thrust.

In and out, in and out, drawing his penis free until but the head remained within her delicious heat before plunging back, slapping his hips to hers, hilted to the base as his testicles pressed into the crease of her rear. Each moist slap of their bodies only stoked him higher, rapidly reaching out for that precipice even as he desired for the sensation to last forever until-

Shouting and swearing, bellowing oaths he felt a great explosion that ripped down his penis, like his spine itself liquefied and tried to burst free, white-hot and physical, and he thrust up into her one final time, his addled mind trying to practically clamber inside the warm body he nestled within. His entire body bowed, hips surging for the ceiling. He crushed her to his chest with both arms, enfolding her and howling at the ceiling as he came, over and over, feeling almost as if he everted deep into the slick prison his penis was wedged within.

Dimly he heard her counterpart exclamation, feeling a spark of pain at one shoulder, but he was lost in the overpowering sensation of his very first orgasm in seventy-seven years. It seemed to last forever, each contraction tugging a groan deep in his chest. It was beyond pleasure, beyond reason – cathartic and all-encompassing, he saw shatters of light behind clenched shut eyes and every fractured facet of his psyche existed in each burst from him. She shuddered and flexed around him, almost painfully tight and with rhythmic strokes that seemed to haul more and more from the depths of his testicles with each clenching, straining flex of his glutes.

Until he fell boneless and relaxed, still embedded within the eldar with her limp and quivering body sprawled against him.

He lay there on the dirty floor, forgotten papers beneath him as he panted and twitched, penis still occasionally jerking-halfheartedly in response to unexpected soft tremors that ran through his partner's body. Absentmindedly he stroked along her back, enjoying the appealing sweat-soaked skin and firm bands of muscle. She nuzzled closer, burying her face against his chest, lank and tangled hair tickling his overheated skin.

His mind was…not a single coherent thought could accrete. It was the most satisfied and content he had felt in…perhaps years, or more. Not since he had been personally commended by his company's Wayfarer and honored by the Laurel had he felt even close to this at peace and centered. Yet in this moment it was entirely different. The feeling of the eldar – of a distinctly and very soft female body sprawled on him, breasts squashed against his broad chest, smooth thighs spread with his penis nestled between – touched him on some primal level. The way she moulded against him was like a hidden piece of a puzzle just now discovered and so perfectly did it fit.

What he had just done, what they had just done – was it heresy?

Was it a betrayal of all he was?

What even had they done?

Nothing in his decades, centuries even, of service could explain this.

Nothing his Wayfarer ever spoke of could answer this.

To abhor the heretic, to sanction the witch, to stand against the xeno.

Yet he had accepted this eldar's aid for so many months. Necessity had driven him to it, and he knew that no fault could be found in such an alliance of necessity. It was indeed not unheard of. Unpleasant, unnatural, and unwanted yes – but not entirely unheard of. There were whispers that even the Lord Commander, Roboute Guilliman, returned after ten thousand years, had accepted the aid of the eldar. So this – was this acceptable as well?

This intensely physical, unexpectedly pleasurable action. Was it no different than, say, a particularly strange and unconventional duel between allies? Then the eldar stirred in his arms, whimpering as she trembled, to gaze up at him. The look in her eyes, almost colorless and huge, the sweat that plastered her hair across her forehead and face wildly, swollen lips and bright red flush –

His penis stirred inside her, and he realized it had not softened nor returned to form. His hands found her rear again, taking a cheek in each palm, and he gently and delicately rolled her hips, just barely shifting her up and down on him. She shuddered, eyes fluttering shut, sucking her lower lip into her mouth to nibble at it.

The yearning to use her came again and this time he did not push it away. Instead he shoved aside his confusion, his concerns, and simply chose to act. To let instinct and desire guide him.

In a flash he had her on her back instead, staring up at him, a surprised gasp escaping her mouth as he flipped their positions so quickly. Both legs he gathered up in his arms, pressing them back to hook heels against his shoulders, stretching the long muscles along her thighs and calves. With her legs pressed together like this and elevated he realized she was tighter, more constricting, clinging more desperately to his penis as he slowly began to pull back and thrust forward again. It was perhaps even better than before, the anticipation of release now egging him on.

Before long he was flush against her, pressing her knees to her chest, snapping hips forward to sink home again and again, grunting and snarling at the intensity of feeling that yanked sparks from behind his eyes. The eldar could but ride out his lust. Her smaller body rocked and shook with each heavy stroke, unintelligible and broken syllables and stumbled words spilling from her lips as her eyes rolled back under heavy lids and she clenched hard and long around him. With his head pressed into the crook of her neck, inhaling deep the musk and aroma of her sweat and skin, he felt the constant tickle of her long, thin ears as he thrust. Unthinking he raised his head, snaring the tip in his lips and running his tongue along its lower edge.

The way her entire body tensed told him he had found some weakness and he nibbled with the lightest of care at the tip of her ear. The eldar shrieked under him, suddenly erupting in spasms, not just meeting his thrusts but wildly rolling her hips as best she could to devour his penis with her body, practically begging him with her actions to go deeper, harder. Unintelligible words flowed endlessly from her gasping lips, spilling out as she bucked against him. Finding it impossible to be focus, he simply took as much of her ear into his mouth as he could, stroking his tongue along the crease and arc of it.

'More,' she moaned, her command of Gothic nearly lost, 'mo-o-o-re…' Each thrust hitched her voice, forcing out the moaned demand. He obliged, worrying her ear with his mouth, pressing her body into the ground with his and ravaging without end.

* * *

He peaked another two times within her, that same erupting burst that ripped its way free of him as his testicles heaved and tightened.

By the third time he ached, feeling overdrawn and spent and he slumped back from her, releasing her body to slide free of his penis with a sodden sound. He panted, kneeling over her, one fist planted by her side to hold himself upright. She trembled on the floor as he groaned around the final few contractions that launched strings of cloudy liquid free of him to splatter across her sweat-painted abdominals and breasts covered in red marks from fingers and teeth. Between her legs she dribbled a large amount of the same liquid, flowing free from what he now properly saw as a soft hole hidden by pink folds, now flushed, swollen and dripping with their combined emissions. Thick and milky-white it crept out with each clench and roll of her hips.

Curious, he stroked a finger through the streaks on her chest and brought it to his mouth, tasting it.

Salty and slightly bitter; his enhanced senses found sugars and protein.

Every muscle burned, secondary heart still pounding, and he groaned as he laid himself down next to the eldar, oddly desiring to remain close to her. He propped himself on one elbow, looking over her nude and disheveled form. He coughed to clear his throat, before murmuring low.

'Are you well, eldar?' She did not respond, eyes still closed, hips slowly rotating in little circles, fingers clenched into fists. Her abs still twitched now and then, a smooth undulation. She seemed utterly boneless, legs and arms strewn haphazardly still where he released them and for a moment he was concerned he had lost control too much and permanently damaged the alien.

Then she groaned, reaching out with a shaking hand to feel for him before slapping against his side.

'_Mharahi raen'lar yai_,' she muttered, 'come closer.' Rather than adjust himself, he simply reached out and hauled her closer, settling her smaller form against him, nestled in the curve of his body.

'Better.' She looked up at him, blinking, and he felt the curious urge to kiss her.

So he did.

She reciprocated, but it was much calmer, far less frenetic meeting than before. A press of lips, a brush of tongue and they parted.

'I admit,' she smiled, 'I cannot walk. Or move altogether, I suspect.'

'I am sorry, if I caused injury.' Her free hand gently rubbing across his chest, she shook her head.

'You have much to learn. You caused no harm. But rather much pleasure. Much. I was…I was not expecting such vigor.'

'Then it was pleasant for you.' She gestured at herself.

'Wonderfully so,' she admitted, 'though perhaps next time I will lead. As I had intended.'

'It was difficult to resist. This – the feeling I had not expected.'

'Then you have not done this before?'

'This? Whatever it was? No.'

''Whatever it is'?' she quoted back at him, a smirk teasing her features. 'You do not know mating? Truly?' He frowned. Mating, yes. Sex, in the abstract. Procreation. Mortals did it and the new generation was the result. The specifics never mattered nor the mechanics.

'Mating is for procreation. I am Astartes, you are-' she cut him off.

'Mating is for many things, Astartes. Children are only one purpose. Pleasure is another. Bonding. Sharing of trust.'

'Then what we did-'

'Lust as well. The want for another's body. I grew attracted to you over these months. So too did you for me. The difference is I understood the feelings.' He nodded, mulling over her explanation. Mating for the purpose of pleasure and trust. A strange idea and one that did not gel entirely with him. She had to be leaving something out – he knew mating was between a male and a female, yet for these purposes other than procreation – surely that then did not preclude other pairings? Yet he admitted the unexpected interest he found in the eldar was solely due to her female attributes. The softness of her skin, even over the taut muscles: shape of her breasts, the sweetness of her mouth, the incandescent sensations found between her legs.

She was not explaining everything but he accepted it for now.

'You have shown me much, eldar. And I have much to consider. Perhaps we should speak…further. Later.' Her eyes slid shut, and she nestled closer. He let his head drop, pillowed on one arm. The stark hardness of the tile floor beneath them did not register to him, having endured and slept in far, far worse conditions. It did not appear to concern the eldar either.

'A fine idea.' Already her voice was muzzy and slow, and he felt her breathing grow rhythmic and deeper as she slipped into slumber.

He allowed himself to slide into rest too, segments of his mind turning off as he drifted, always staying semi-aware but allowing each part of his brain to power down and recuperate.

Always he was aware of the presence of the eldar against him. Her soft body, warm skin and long, relaxed breaths. The beat of her heart.

It was…

Good.


	2. Beneath the Ruins

**Thought of the Day: Compromise is akin to Treachery**

* * *

**HE RETURNED** to his full senses slowly, the vestiges of slumber receding from the final sectors of his mind. Surprising – he had not fallen into true sleep in weeks. The lume was still glowing, soft and warm, having more than enough charge for many more hours at this setting. He found the eldar still nestled against him, contoured against his body. He appeared to have encircled her with his arms at some point during the night: one large palm resting against her smooth stomach, feeling her breathe, his other arm stretched beneath her, trapped beneath her warm body. Her fingers he found entwined with his outstretched hand and idly stroked his thumb across her knuckles. An interesting contrast - his broad thumb smoothed across her fingers. Each of her own digits were much slimmer than his, yet easily as long. The eldar was a curious thing, a strange parody of the human form, pulled through a distorted mirror and reflected back.

The sense of fulfillment remained. His mission was still there, as important as it had ever been; yet in this moment, lying on the dirty floor, surrounded by ruin with an alien woman in his arms, it all seemed so very distant. As if the universe ended at the limits of the glow of the lume, held at bay and waiting. He could rise. Shove the eldar away and dress himself: replace his battered bodyglove, pull on the remnants of his boots, take chainsword up and move on.

He could.

There was no urgency. Again he drew his gaze along the eldar, the sweet arc from hip to shoulder where she nestled against him.

This world would keep. A difference of an hour after months would make no difference. No, now was time for consideration. Contemplation.

Of what he – they – had done.

It felt not unlike he had made some grand decision, passed some threshold from which there could be no return. What he left behind or perhaps discovered, if that were the case, was as yet still unclear. Coupling with the eldar - mating, she had called it - challenged his conceptions of the world.

Before last night it had been simple. He was Astartes. He was made in the image of his Primarch and his Chapter. He fought for the Emperor, he slew the enemies of man, he brought honor to his brothers and himself. The mortals of the Imperium, humanity itself: they bred and multiplied and secured the future of the species. Eventually he would die. Today, tomorrow, the next year or decade or century: he would die in battle and his service would be ended. Geneseed extracted and implanted and his legacy continued.

Mortals had been a curiosity at best; an aggravating nuisance at worst. He had known respect for Guardsmen, for units that would stand until the last and fight with the Emperor's own fury. A general that had led her men to victory after a series of brutal and ingenious maneuvers. An admiral whose selflessness and service were unimpeachable, who was honored by the Chapter for his service.

But he'd known mortals to be fickle and petty and selfish, wrapped in convoluted plots and obtuse tradition. Even the tribes and vassal kingdoms of Choroct, where he had come from, where the Host still sunk roots could be obtuse. Confusing. Many times he had been grateful to his ascension, shaking his head at the needless complexities of governance and social norms. With the cataclysm of the Great Rift some decades previous, his Chapter had begun associating more and more closely with the worlds they were tasked to protect. Already less aloof and removed than other Chapters, it had been felt critical to see and be seen, yet he had never felt entirely comfortable on the occasions liaison had been necessary.

The concerns of mortals were not that of transhumans, nor vice versa. Let them have their teeming trillions, all the little, strange lives they led. That was the design of the Emperor, beloved by all.

This taste of a world so entirely beyond his own was tantalizing, inviting, but ultimately hard to grasp. It reminded him of a grand ball he had attended many years ago.

After a prolonged campaign against the greenskins, his Company had been honored by the planetary governor of Itram. A grand feast was thrown in his palatial estate to honor the Emperor's angels. His Khan had ordered their attendance: every surviving brother of the Horde not otherwise engaged. The importance to lead by example and inspire by presence, or something like that. To reinforce faith. Twenty-three battlebrothers attended, for the casualties had been severe and many were still recovering in the apothecarion. Still other squads were still hunting down the last of the beasts, unwilling to give up the final hunt.

He remembered circulating amongst the mobs of mortal guests in attendance. The distinct feeling of being powerfully out of place in polished and humming wargear, ceremonial blade holstered on his belt, holding a frightfully undersized chalice in one palm. There seemed no end to the rites and rituals, constant speeches and toasts and which-course-came-after-which. He knew the ways of his homeworld, adopted and evolved by the Host. The simple feasts, the bright hearthfires, the straightforward and clear hierarchy of chief and khan and warrior. Some of his brothers sampled the food, finding it strange and complex on their palates. He had been perturbed by the bizarre array of preparations and courses – none of which were scaled to an Astarte's appetite. The wine was good, at least, rich in flavor and with a pleasing bite of alcohol, a burn that did not make it even halfway down his throat.

There was some measure of meaning hidden in the different cuts and styles of dress, in the weight of adorning jewelry. None of it had the clarity of a penned oath-paper or a crisply emblazoned pauldron. All of it impenetrable to him, from the food to the conduct, though occasional glimpses of his Khan showed only ease. Perhaps he simply was not cut out for it and at the time pondered at length on his lack of ascension within the ranks. The night passed in general tedium and a mounting desire to return to the ship and his own spartan quarters.

Mating felt similar. There was a wealth of hidden meaning and intention behind what they had done, he was sure. The eldar's explanations were too scant and too full of gaps to satisfy. Of course, he reckoned in this instance he had ultimately been far more successful in adapting, if the reaction of the eldar was to be judged correctly. While he was not sure quite what feelings the alien experienced – and as a xeno, any resemblance to human emotions would be suspect – it seemed as satisfied as he had been.

He was supposed to be beyond such feelings and urges. His purpose was to be the bared blade, the weapon of the Emperor. Not to copulate.

He'd never heard of any Astartes doing similar. At least, none outside of the darkest rumors about the traitors and the damned.

In truth, even with the veil lifted from his eyes, even with the experience of joining so fully and physically with a female very vividly in mind (and in his arms)– he found the concept of doing so with a mortal human…

Uninteresting.

That startled him, enough that unconsciously he paused in his rhythmic massage of her hand. The eldar mumbled in her sleep, adjusting minutely against him. Perhaps it had been a momentary weakness last night, a lapse in his conditioning and fortitude brought on by the unceasing weeks of strain and deprivation.

A test, then, he supposed. His free hand he stroked up from her belly, to run fingers along the swell of her breasts. The sleek skin under his fingers, the softness beneath his fingertips, the memory of her taste – his penis stirred where it rested against the curve of her rear, softly nudging against the smooth cleft.

Perhaps not.

He let his hand drop, simply holding her to him once more. The eldar did not stir. His reaction to her body still felt natural. Proper. Her body contoured against his own, the warmth that bled from her skin to him, the feel of so much contact, such simple intimacy. She was not wrong, in her words from the night previous: '_The man was hidden beneath, but the desire for a woman is strong_.' The discovery of some facet of his being thought long ago discarded left him uneasy. If he was capable of…lust…what else might lurk beneath the surface in his mind?

He was Astartes and he knew no fear – but was that the truth? Astartes knew no lust or hunger for another's body, yet inhaling deep the strange alien spice of her hair he knew that to be wrong. The range of desire he had experienced in their mating proved that. The hunger behind it, how desperate her body had made him. Even now the curious urge to experience it all over again. Remembering her gasping atop him, underneath him. The heady sensation of pinning a squirming body beneath him and thrusting to ecstasy. The sound of her delirious pleasure pouring into his ears, the softness of her shape. How right it felt to release inside her. His penis, still half-asleep, throbbed once or twice once more.

There was a lot to ponder. Much to consider. If, or rather when, he returned to the Chapter, he assigned himself at least a month of contemplation.

The eldar stirred against him, moving in her sleep, adjusting so that she lay mostly flat beside him, long legs still folded. The jostle of her breasts drew his eyes, nudging him from introspection.

Her body he examined with new eyes. Eyes unclouded by lust and confusion and the mounting tension that had dominated much of his attention previously. With eyes now opened by a whole paradigm undreamt of.

Her long legs were crossed, folded atop one another. He traced the tendons in her ankles, where they joined up with smooth calves. Her thighs his gaze lingered on, remembering how they had clenched and clung to him. They swept upward, flaring into appealing hips which above dipped inward into a slender midriff, toned with muscle. Slowly her chest rose and fell with her long, slow breathing, breasts soft and mildly spread against her ribs. He noted her nipples were softer now, less evident, no longer straining and stiff. Gently he stroked along her body with an index finger, from navel up, trailing across an old scar here and there. At her neck he tickled across collarbones, noting the build of muscle at her neck and sturdy shoulders. The elegant golden chain remained about her neck, terminating in a softly glowing gemstone that rested at her sternum.

Her long, thin neck was exposed, her head turned to nestle against him and for a long, long time he studied the vulnerable eldar.

He should kill her.

With every soft exhale loose strands of her hair fluttered where they lay across her face.

Do it. Here and now.

He was in the capital, the shrine could be no more than a day or two's searching away. The devourer seemed to have moved on from this region. Indeed, they had not seen evidence of the beasts for several days before leaving the forests and entering Weatherheart proper. He did not need another set of hands, another body, another weapon to hold them at bay.

He should kill her.

He could see her eyes moving beneath shuttered lids, flicking this way and that in dreams.

He knew dispassionately, in a detached, rational way, that she should die. It was a whisper in his ear, an order that sounded not unlike his long-dead _arbana_. Kill the xeno and move on. It is no longer an asset. Dispense of it. It was a sound idea and one none of his brothers could argue against.

It would be so easy. A single hand could enfold her neck entirely. A squeeze and she would die. Never even wake. It would even be merciful. Peaceful. Tentatively he reached out with his free hand. His fingertips barely brushed against her skin. The eldar adjusted again, feathery brows briefly drawing together as she mumbled. He watched her throat bob as she swallowed, coughed, sighed, and was silent once more. Her skin beneath his palm was warm, warmer than his own. The pulse of blood along veins strong and evident to the touch.

He should kill her.

Looking down at her, her face only inches away, soft and relaxed in satisfied slumber he noticed details he had not before. Her lips slightly parted a she breathed, rose-colored and slender. A fleck of shiny white scar tissue struck downward from the corner of her mouth to her chin. Wide, almond shaped eyes shuttered, hiding the vibrant green that reminded him of the deep forest on his homeworld. She had long eyelashes. He had not noticed before. They were stuck together here and there and must tickle at the very top of her cheeks when she blinked. A spread of very fine freckles crossed her nose and cheeks, nearly as pale as her skin. The tips of her thin ears poked out of the tangled mane of her hair. Strands were tangled across her face, loose and astray.

Her heartbeat thrummed against his hand. Thud, thud, thud. His palm slid higher, cradling the base of her skull, noting distantly it felt thinner than a human's. A little bit of force and he'd detach it. Fingers tangled in her hair, the black silk of it spilling across his shoulder and arm. She was bare to him – unprotected and exposed, placing all her trust in him as she slept.

Gently he tilted her face upward and leaned down to press his lips against hers.

Her eyes fluttered open as she awoke, immediately reciprocating the kiss. Warm fingers found his jaw, tangling in the coarse beard at his chin, pulling their kiss deeper and longer.

When they broke apart she looked up at him, enfolded as she was by his arm underneath and around her.

'Well,' she whispered, blinking slowly, 'it is a better awakening than many previous.' Oddly unsure of himself, he simply nodded. The eldar ran a hand through her tangled hair, dragging cracked and dirty nails through the strands, brushing it away from her face. 'Have you been awake long?' Again, bereft of words, he inclined his head. He expected her to draw away, to prepare for the day to come. As he should do too. Instead she turned her head and pressed a kiss against his chest. Muffled there, she spoke.

'You were watching me.'

'I was.' There was no reason to dissemble, but he frowned when she smiled, feeling the curl of her lips against his skin. What was amusing about that? Should he not have admitted it?

'I do not know what to make of you, Space Marine.' Warm fingers brushed down his chest, before she placed her palm flat above his hearts, and gazed up at him. 'You are…not what I expected.' His words he chose carefully – weighing his thoughts.

'I would say the same, I believe.' The eldar adjusted, shuffling to turn her body toward him, resting her cheek against her palm and he withdrew his hand to lay it on her hip. From under her eyelashes she looked up at him, the inhuman orbs unreadable and bright.

'The space marines of the Imperium are supposed to be mindless fanatics, they say. Hungry for blood and incapable of reason.' Part of him prickled at the insult, but greater was his amusement. She was, after all, an alien, and any insult was to be expected.

'That is not inaccurate for some, I admit.' Like all things, the Adeptus Astartes was as varied as the galaxy itself – he could not imagine a Black Templar, say, in these circumstances.

'But you are…thoughtful, human. That surprises me.'

'And you are not as deceitful as your kind are said to be.' She smiled; trailing a finger through the hair bristled on his chest.

'Am I not? I could yet conceal a blade eager to claim your life.' The quirk of her lips betrayed the threat, the gesture becoming clearly analogous to the human expression. He could not let it pass unanswered: before she could react he pulled her to him, crushed to his chest, his arms around her, pinning her solidly as she gasped in surprise.

'If you truly did, eldar, do you think it would be so easy?' Peering up from between his pectorals, she blushed and gnawed on her lower lip.

'Mm, perhaps, ah, not-' she said, voice pitched a little higher than before. He rolled onto his back, guiding her to lie atop him and relaxed his embrace. She raised herself up on elbows, suspended over the vast expanse of his chest. Idly she twirled strands of his chest hair between fingers and he caught himself eyeing the hanging points of her breasts between her arms.

'I see that, space marine,' she chided, raising an eyebrow. She flicked a thumb across a nipple, jiggling the soft weight. 'May I ask a question?' The weight and warmth of the alien was pleasant, and he nodded.

'You find me attractive.'

'That is not a question.'

'I suppose it is not. Let me rephrase. You find me attractive – why?'

He frowned. Once again, the eldar seemed to pre-empt his own thoughts and concerns. Was he not pondering this selfsame question before she awoke?

'You initiated this contact, witch. Shall I ape your kind and reflect the question back? Why did _you _seek out my touch?' The eldar rolled her eyes, crossing her forearms and slumping, eyes flicking across his face.

'Unlike you, space marine, I recognize my desires. My kind are passionate in all things. We temper and we control those passions, yes, but true knowledge of ourselves is our greatest strength. I wanted you. I have needs and you were available.' There was a more there, he sensed, though how he could tell eluded his grasp. The eldar's body language was as impenetrable as their abstruse culture and endless aggrandizing. But she seemed evasive, almost too forthcoming. Too sure and quick to speak.

'Do you ever speak without aggrandizing? All my experience with your kind is endless disdain and insult. How you lord your supposed superiority over all others, despite being a shadow of all you claim to have been. Yet you lie with me, when not days ago you called me 'mon'keigh'. I do not know the word but I know the tone.' She snorted.

'And you call me 'xeno' and 'witch', yet found no objection in the pleasure of my body! Sometimes it is that simple, _mon'keigh_. You find offense in everything, yet I voice only a trivial curiosity!' Typical of the eldar, to act as though offended, as though _he _was at fault here, all to maintain her veneer of superiority.

'Trivial indeed.' She sat up, readjusting herself to straddle him, looking down. Her hand wrapped around a breast and squeezed, the flesh molding about her fingers.

'Allow me to be simpler then. Your cock stirs for my body. I'm curious as to why. I'd heard your kind were sexless. Do you even know?'

The irritating part is that she was not wrong. The sight of her astride him, caught in the glow of the lume, hair awry, nude, was arousing. He felt himself stir behind her, his penis twitching as he took in her body. Compounding that irritation is that he had no proper answer. So he stole her words, amused at throwing them back.

'I am a man, and the desire for a woman runs deep.'

She blew a raspberry, loud and rude.

'Do not think yourself cunning.' He grinned, enjoying needling her.

'Is that not enough? Very well, let me be truthful. I do not know.' He shrugged, before stroking his hands along her thighs, enjoying the feel of her skin.

'Instinct then. You'll forgive my interest. I don't frequently deflower humans, let alone one of your kind.'

''Deflower'?'

'Virginity, space marine.'

'I do not follow.' For a moment she just stared at him, mouth slightly agape, eyes narrowed.

'You are…not making a jest. Khaine's blood! You _are _stunted.' He stopped stroking her thighs, gripping tight and eliciting an irritated hiss.

'I've said it before, eldar – I will accept illumination, but I will not be mocked.' She pried his hands away, though truly he allowed it, and placed them on her hips.

'So quick to take offense,' she tsk'd, and started running her hands along the plane of his abdominals again. Her touch was pleasant, though vaguely distracting with how light her hands seemed to glide across him. 'You just seem to know so little.'

'I am Astartes. I am the Sword of the Emperor, and I know all I need to fulfill my purpose.' From beneath a cocked eyebrow she shot a glance back up from her examination of his chest.

'Of that I have no doubt. But there is so much more to life! So much else to experience. Have you no pastimes? No curiosities, no interests beyond the breech of your boltgun?'

'What else is there? My life is the currency of the Emperor and it is not mine to spend at whim.' She slapped his stomach, a barely noticeable blow, though the sharp sound filled the air.

'You are exhausting!'

He knew what she spoke of. In the few times he had interacted with baseline humans, he had been astounded by the amount of _things _they did. Countless were the ways mortals filled what little spare time they had. He'd heard tell of assorted games and sports played by the manufactorum laborers, pursued with surprising enthusiasm after the long, grinding hours working for their quotas. Of the infinite activities pursued by the wealthy and leisurely. A minor noble had tried to explain to him the nuance of dramaturges and theatre, but he had barely listened.

He was Astartes. His days were filled with training, meditation. Honing his body and mind, honoring the gifts he had been given.

There were some things done within his Chapter that were never spoken of to outsiders, for to do so would cheapen the act. Poetry, calligraphy. The encapsulation of action within the stroke of pen and ink. He was not skilled at it. He had seen the elegant arcs and harsh intent of the battle poems of his Khan. There was inspiration in the sharp contrast of black ink and crisp vellum, in the surety and clarity of each chosen phrase.

But he could find neither the inner peace nor the inspiration to do the same: every attempt felt flat, affectatious.

It was an honored tradition, said to have descended all the way from the original Legion, the White Scars, his Chapter descended from. Rarely had they the occasional to associate with their closest brother Chapters. Rarely had the Host time to barter history and tradition with other sons of the great Jaghatai, the Khagan. One of the most sacred relics was a scrap of time-worn hide, preserved in stasis. It was said it had been penned during the height of the Great Crusade, in those legendary and mythic days.

He did not speak of this to the eldar.

'My life is my service.'

'And now?' Her words rang true – he wondered if he could shut these feelings back up again. If he could, or even would, put aside the memory of her flesh, of their coupling.

'I do not know.'

'Truth, and no protest. We find rapport, you see?' she smiled, eyes alight, and he felt the strange urge to kiss her. With his hands on her hips, it was simplicity itself to reach higher, to pull her down. The eldar was unresisting, and their lips met first gently before he wove his fingers into her hair, her mouth opening, sweet and warm, a suffuse heat blooming in his chest. Lying like this, her head tilted down to meet him exposed the long, slender column of her neck. Breaking free of her soft lips he pulled her closer, brushing his lips along her cheek to the join of jaw and neck. The salty sweet flavor of her skin, tainted with dried sweat from the previous night coated his tongue and he devoured it, hungry for more.

The eldar shifted her legs about him, sliding herself down to trap his penis in the crevice of her rear, sandwiched solidly between firm cheeks. Rapidly he hardened, each throb of his heartbeat twitching his shaft in its pleasant prison. Feeling her pulse thumping hard right beneath the skin he suckled and nibbled, the eldar groaning and grinding her hips.

'That – yes,' she murmured as his teeth worried gently at her.

It was as instinct, these actions. He followed her reactions, doubling down when she responded positively, leaving aside angles of attack when no reaction was found. No different, truly, than battle. Find the weakness of the enemy, exploit it, and victory was assured.

When her hand wormed between their bodies, toying with a nipple, rolling it between thin fingers, he swatted aside her hand and took her entire breast in his broad palm, pinching the hardening bud between two knuckles and kneading. Remembering her motions from the previous evening, he slid his other hand down her navel, index finger pressing in against taut muscle to dip between her legs. The velvety folds there were damp, hot, and he pressed his fingers up against her, squishing the malleable lips together.

A gentle hand wove into his hair, tugging him away from her neck. He accepted being drawn away, looking in satisfaction at the saliva-swathed marks stretching from ear to shoulder.

'Let me teach you-' she whispered, cheeks flushed, looking up at him. This time he was not bothered by the implication of inexperience.

'Then do so.'

She covered his hand between her legs with her own, guiding and drawing him from where he had awkwardly cupped her sex, leaving the tips of his fingers resting just above her womanhood.

'Do you understand…what is your word? Taunt, no – bother?' She frowned, mouthing strange syllables and he thought for a moment, a difficult proposition with her hips still gently rocking, incrementally shifting his erection against her rear.

'Tease?'

'Yes, tease. There is anticipation, human, to tease but not give.' Muscles in her thighs and rear suddenly clenched, and he inhaled sharply as the softness around his penis momentarily clutched at him. Then she relaxed and shifted, leaving their skin-to-skin contact just barely perceptible.

'Like that? You want more now.'

'I do,' he admitted, truthful. The smouldering embers of the previous evening's passions were reigniting again, stoked and flaring to life at the feel of her against him. Sense memory of her clutching, wet insides squeezing him danced through his mind.

'It makes this more pleasurable.' Her hand still over his, she guided him so that the tips of his fingers brushed against the lips of her sex, straying close to but not touching the softer, inner folds that peeked hungrily through.

'Mm,' she hummed, snaring her bottom lip with her teeth. 'Gentle, teasing.'

'This is good?' By way of answering, her other hand reached behind them, encircling his penis in a soft and loose grasp, tickling and teasing around his sensitive head.

When he twitched and gasped her smile was lazy, satisfied, that of a carnodon.

'_This _is good?' her tone was mocking, but light. The feather-soft stroke of her fingers across his penis, gathering his drooling wetness, spreading it down the thick shaft – he tried to match, to replicate the motion against her entirely different anatomy. It was surely clumsy, he knew, his thick fingers suited to handling a bolter or throttling life from a greenskin, not stroking along inner thigh and gently parting and squeezing together a woman's intimacy.

Yet she relinquished her guidance, returning to playing with her breast even as she kept up the synchronized torment of his penis. The growing wetness leaking from her gave clue to his success.

He explored her, learning through touch the geography of her body. He learned how the thicker outer lips slid aside, parted easily by his fingers to reveal the slippery petals that framed her sex. The way the taut cords of muscle along her inner thighs twitched and jumped beneath his touch. How she nodded and sucked in a deep breath when his probing finger found a raised nub at the apex of her lips, standing proud and erect. He learned how she liked it when he pressed her lips together, catching the sensitive bundle between slick skin and rolling it between his fingers. The look on her face when he reached a thick finger inside her, wet flesh parting around him, he committed to memory. The electric reaction when in his explorations he discovered her deepest weaknesses, the parts of her sex that set her atremble, that clenched her fingers in the hair of his chest so hard strands plucked free.

And he combined those tactics again and again, adjusting his angles of attack, randomizing vectors, launching assault after assault along the most successful trajectories, transhuman mind focused on the minute shifts in her face and body.

He imagined he was before a canvas, reaching out with a brush, and with bold and sure strokes he brought to life her ecstasy until she cried out, gasping, fluids soaking him to the wrist. He noted she had ceased her ministrations on him some time ago, too caught up in the moment to continue.

So much for eldar superiority, he mused, watching her gather her faculties, sucking in breaths and scrubbing a hand across her sweaty face.

'Did you lie to me, human?' Amusement softened the accusation as she panted, leaning propped up on one arm above him. 'because I find your 'inexperience' called into question.'

'I am Astartes. We are made to be the best at what we set our minds to.'

'Then,' she said, readjusting herself so that his shaft was before her, pressed to her belly, the heat of her sex wafting across his testicles, 'for once, I should thank your Emperor.'

Her hands wrapping around him pushed the sacrilege from his mind.

He watched, curious and transfixed, as she slowly stroked his penis from head to base, both hands wrapped about it, smearing his fluids across him. Every now and then she would dip fingers to her sex to add her own wetness, an unexpectedly erotic action that had him sucking in air between his teeth. It was just as enjoyable as joining with her albeit in an entirely different manner. She could tease and caress him in ways her body could not – fingers rolling back his skin to circle and slip across the straining head of his cock, as she called it, eliciting a nearly painful intensity of sensitive pleasure that curled his toes. Her fingertips dancing around the crown of his shaft had him nearly shouting in short order, hips bucking as he sought relief.

Which she gave in a rush, wrapping both hands around him, slick with their combined fluids, stroking him from root to tip over and over.

In an instant he was there, right at the precipice, toes curling and fingers digging into the cracked duracrete floor as his body hummed.

For a moment he hung there as she slowed, the most delicate teasing holding him just beyond the edge.

Four fingers stroked firmly from his testicles to his crown while her other hand anchored his penis in place and he erupted, grunting and huffing. Thick ropes sprayed upwards, slapping against her abs, splashing across the underside of her breasts as she languidly stroked him through it. She kept up even after the deluge trickled to vain twitches that produced only a thin trickle, before wiping off her palms against her thighs.

As she rose from where she straddled him, he admired the sight of his emissions shining across her body. A canvas, indeed.

The eldar looked down at her hands, then as if sensing his attention, down across the length of her body. The glow of the lume caught along her jaw and drew highlights from her hair as she yawned, wide enough to for an audible pop. A halo of soft light caught along her body, turning pale skin warm gold with its luminance, fine hairs glowing with radiance. The image caught fast, burning itself into his memories with a startling force. He found he did not want the moment to fade, yet admonished himself that it must. He sat up as well, resting elbows on his knees, unconcerned for his nakedness.

The eldar looked over her body and sniffed.

'I am a mess. I suspect you are little better.'

She was quite right – not only from his recent ejaculate but their combined emissions from the night before. The scent of sweat and exertion clung to him; he was sure, as it did her.

The eldar awkwardly walked to her gear, shaking out each leg as she went, before fishing out the oblong canteen she kept filled. As she sucked down the water, he considered his cleansing. Last time had been in the forests where enough creeks and ponds in this region allowed for reasonable access to water. Now he had but what he carried in his own canteen. It would not be the worst conditions he had endured. Shrugging, he picked up his bodysuit, shaking out folds and creases in a few of the panels. He was about to pull it on when he caught the eldar eying him.

'You don't intend to cleanse?'

'With what tools?' He gestured around the office they had sheltered in and the greater warehouse besides. 'There is nothing here.'

'We passed pools from the rains outside.'

'That is outside.' She raised an eyebrow.

'It is, yes. Does your nakedness trouble you? I suspect the tyranids do not care.' Her gaze dragged along his naked body, lingering below his waist. 'I certainly do not mind.' He frowned at her attitude – the tyranids certainly would care. Flesh was softer and more vulnerable than battleplate, even as limited as his own had become.

'I am troubled by danger, eldar. To go beyond these walls is to be at risk, and I will not do so without reason. Reason that goes beyond luxury.' She capped her canteen and placed it back on the ground, hefting the long claw she carried and a scrap of rag.

'I am as deadly in my skin as I am in my armor. Come, space marine, are you not as well?' The thought of leaving his gear for even such a short time bothered him. Yet he felt he could not let the eldar go alone. Together they were more effective. Safer, perhaps. It had gotten them this far, not to mention the idea of the eldar wandering out into the city nude did not sit right with him. Besides, he could admit her goading bothered him. He knew no fear and would damned if an alien would outdo him.

'Fine,' he growled, bending to gather up his bodysuit and chainsword. Casting a final look at his greaves and boots, sitting empty, he shook his head and gestured.

'Lead on then.'

* * *

She was correct. There were a number of pools among the ruins, still and relatively clear. Incandry's Rest was a temperate and rainy world, thus most of the worst of the dust and debris had long since washed away. The eldar entered first, breaking the tranquility of the water with careful steps. She probed as she walked, the water creeping up to her thighs. Gooseflesh pimped along her arms and legs, matching the occasional shiver.

'Ware here,' she gestured, 'there is a gap in the rubble. Do not fall.'

He nodded and eased himself in as well, clenching his teeth at the sudden unexpected chill of the water. Winter was indeed well on its way. The eldar got to work immediately, soaking her rag and scrubbing down her long limbs. For a moment he watched her, the different motion of a woman from a man. Then he set to himself, not noticing her own stolen glances here and there.

As they washed, scrubbing away sweat and other residue the eldar broke the silence.

'I would know your name, space marine.' An odd question. Before now they had never bothered with names. She was 'eldar' or 'xeno'. Sometimes 'witch'. Once: 'creature'. In return she had always called him 'mon'keigh' or 'fool'. Sometimes 'human'. Names had not been important, and he had never intended to offer such to an alien.

But as they cleansed, the cold water prickling at his skin and invigorating him, he did not feel any need to hide it. No reason to keep it.

'I am Brother Qin,' he said, 'Fifth Company, Jade Host.' The eldar nodded, and paused wringing out her rag with both hands. Her skin shone with dampness under the morning rays, hair soaked and falling in tendrils to frame her face and tickle across her shoulders and breasts. He noted her nipples were firm and pebbled, curiously fascinated by a single clear droplet of water that dangled on the end of one, just barely unable to fall free.

'And I am Iselyth.' She held out a hand, hanging in the air between them. The gesture was obvious, no matter the species difference. He took it, enfolding her with his much larger hand.

They shook, there, in the early morning sunlight, surrounded by the dappled light on the water.

'It is good to finally know you, space marine.' She returned to her washing, drawing out sections of her hair, squeezing out the water. He scrubbed across his chest, checking a few old wounds, scabs having fallen off days ago. Clean and well-healed.

'We do not call ourselves space marines. I am Astartes.' Musing on it, he added: 'and I believe we already have known each other quite well.' Iselyth laughed - the sound of it shattering through the ruins. Clear and free, unburdened or reserved. He found it not unpleasant.

'Yes, perhaps we did! Very well then, _Astartes_, let me say I am pleased to know your name.' He simply shrugged before stepping out of the pond. The morning sun was low and cool, nothing like the heat when they initially arrived on this world, but he held out both arms wide, letting the rays fall across his body to begin to dry.

He let his mind wander, the eldar's tuneless humming and splashing passing under his notice. Cleansed as best as he could and well-rested (not to mention well-satisfied), the time was ripe to finally finish this. Weatherheart was not a large city – surely they must be near the centre, near the shrine. The thought of his prize so close, practically already in his hands was a torment. If he could get altitude, get his bearings…

He scanned the skyline, or rather what remained of it. The lumpen piles of debris, the gap-toothed serrations of shattered windows and frames. The warehouse they had overnighted in was only a story, nowhere tall enough to work despite the multitude of ladders and gantries. But perhaps – there. A larger ruin, likely a ministry building or similar sat near to the warehouse, within perhaps half a dozen meters. The building was mostly intact, rising four stories to terminate in what appeared to be a mostly intact roof.

He was calculating the distance, deciding if he should climb or attempt to jump across from the warehouse roof when the eldar stepped out from the pool beside him, shifting from leg to leg as she shook off. She gathered her soaked hair into a twist, tossed back over one shoulder and began slow stretches. Little trickles traced down her back. Pressing her arms up over head, reaching down to the small of her back she went through the motions and he watched, curious, seeing some similarities to the calisthenics he knew. Lunges and squats and twists. Punctuated now and then by brief hisses as what he presumed were sore muscles drew taut.

'I am thinking we should be close,' he gestured up at the ministry building, and she followed his direction. 'I will climb that, and see if I can determine our location.'

'I will go as well.'

'As you wish. I will be quick. You are finished?' She stepped back, opening the space between them and cocked a hip, sweeping a hand to encompass her body.

'Do I appear so?' The definition of clean might be different for an eldar, he supposed, but looking over her body he saw nothing but unsoiled skin. So he nodded.

'Yes, you look to be.' She shook her head and laughed and he was puzzled by the reaction.

* * *

The ministry building offered perspective. He crouched on the roof, keeping his form low, avoiding silhouetting himself. The buildings marched away, turning into the flat expanse of the spaceport landing field to the east and the collapsing skeleton of the governor's palace to the west. He could still see the green spread of forests, out on the horizon, reminding him of how minor a conurbation Weatherheart was.

With the palace to the west, spaceport to the east, he ran through the map of the city in his head. Orienting and aligning it, overlaying the roads and features with the denuded stumps and piles of broken duracrete and steel, he narrowed down their location. In his mind's eye he traced routes and counted out blocks, turning down avenues and ticking off landmarks. There it was.

He could have laughed – the shrine was no more than five, perhaps six blocks away. The gothic facings had been mostly defaced and broken: a jagged tear along the eaves left it open to the air and but otherwise it stood intact. He turned to inform the eldar, but paused at what he saw.

She was crouching, like him, atop a spur of rubble formed by a collapsed chimney. She was poised so still and perfectly balanced, shuriken rifle across her knees, bare face thrust to the wind. The way the sun fell across her body, highlighting her curves and shimmering along the silver bodysuit seemed to emphasize the coiled potentiality in her pose. He found he had to swallow once before he could speak. Shaking off the tic, he caught her attention and pointed.

'The shrine is there, Iselyth. Finally. Have you sighted your goal?'

'My target is as it ever has been. Alongside yours. If that is the shrine, then it is to there we will go.'

Cryptic as always.

* * *

The Chapel of Saint Orbek had been surrounded by plantings. Weatherheart was a fine city, he supposed, if he pieced together the hints and clues. Shaded in many places by trees in planters, dotted with parks, kept orderly and planned clearly by an organized municipal council, he supposed it might have been a good place to live. Certainly it stood a stark contrast to the urban, vertical landscape of drab duracrete of Itram's hive cities or the rugged villages and grim fortresses perched on the unforgiving crags of his homeworld.

The tyranids had done away with all that. The little groves and parks were filled with torched and fragile remnants of ancient trees, blasted by impacts from infestor pods. Acid and bile eroded facades, gnashing claws and hammering impacts reduced ornate archways and porticos to rubble. The populace was gone, nary a hint remaining. Likely consumed, digested, long gone.

Saint Orbek now oversaw an overgrown swathe picked out there and here by ruined artillery that snarled with blunted snouts to the sky. Husks of vehicles were half-covered by leafless tangles of bush and vine as the world reclaimed its birthright. There had been a stand here. An ill-fated attempt to hold back the fury of tooth and claw. They picked through the bramble together, Iselyth occasionally slashing aside leafless tangles of brush. The crunch-crackle of fallen leaves broke up the monotony of the previous days: the plodding of ceramite upon worn asphalt. The eldar drifted through, seeming to melt and glide around any obstacle. There was a lightness and ease to her step that he had not noticed before, perhaps an extra flourish and bounce.

He did not notice the lightening and ease of his own stride.

The front doors of Orbek were long gone. He presumed they had been used as barricades by the Guard, left somewhere in the bracken around the Chapel. He led the way into the narthex, chainsword in one fist and plasma pistol in the other. The coils whined, ready to spool and fire at the slightest caress of the trigger. Iselyth was as silent as death at his back, helmet replaced; creeping with stealth he found he was mildly envious of.

Stained, peeling images of the Saint stared down at him from chipped frames, black mold infesting the corners of the ceiling. Graven icons of lesser figures were scattered about the dirty travertine.

'It will be beneath the nave,' he whispered, barely audible. He trusted the eldar to hear him, for they had agreed on no noise unless absolutely necessary. Perhaps it was an overabundance of caution. There was no reason for there to be tyranids lurking here, of all places. The Chapel bore no importance to the beasts nor any discernable benefit.

Yet there was no sense in tempting fate, not this close.

He gestured her onward, leading the way into the Chapel proper. The pews were in ruins, most missing, many shattered into shards. There were scratching and gouges along all the walls, the floor. Scorches of las-blasts and craters from autoguns. His boots clinked against loose shells that piled the floor, sending some rolling in short-lived arcs, leaving fine lines in the dust and dirt.

He wished there had been bodies. Even left to molder and rot it was unseemly for the fallen valiant to have no marker of their passage. Corpses he could honor. Skeletons would tell the tale of their last stand, of the enemies they took down unto death. It was worse for the Chapel to be empty, for their final tale to be truly forgotten.

All he could do was take a moment, standing in the midst of the narthex, and mouth a silent prayer.

Lord Emperor, on thy Throne.  
Take unto thyself their eternal souls.  
Know their sacrifice, their valor, and their faith.  
Ave Imperator Rex.

They may have been mortals, but they had sold their lives dearly in protecting this sacred place. They deserved no less. He held no belief in the divinity of the Emperor, nor did any of his Chapter, but honor and respect was owed.

Catching the eldar's eye, he nodded and gestured. Their plan was clear, discussed beforehand, so she simply inclined her head and moved off, approaching the altar as he prowled along the perimeter of the sanctuary. They needed to find access to the vaults beneath. There would be the relics, hidden away from prying eyes, kept safe for ceremonies. The briefing before the drop had not divulged any direct information on the Chapel itself. Many years had passed, leaving available information long out of date and the imminent landfall of the devourer allowed no time to contact the surface. Generations of priests and clergy had inherited and likely expanded on the structure, making their intel woefully emaciated.

There were no doors, no obvious access along the aisles to either side of the nave. There was not like to be – comparing the size of the Chapel from the exterior to the size of the interior there could be little space there. He made his way to the rear, toward the sanctuary where Iselyth was crouched, hands feeling along the base of the altar. She shook her head as he walked past, still exploring. A part of him rebelled at the sight of an alien in such a place, but he put it aside. Needs must.

He cast around, taking in the ornamentation, the bas-reliefs carved on the wall, the statues and fractured stained glass. Wan light filtered in through the slash in the vaulted ceiling, the shattered windows, shafts of gold in the gloom. Nothing stood out, even to his enhanced vision. No hidden seams, no out-of-place statues, no cleverly concealed hinges.

No.

There.

A large stone carving of the Emperor, shining radiant light from his haloed head. It was the right height, right position. He found easy purchase behind it, lifting it handily from its frame, brief resistance giving way before his enhanced musculature. Sure enough: a simple wooden door lay behind, latched by a series of sturdy bolts. Gingerly he placed the carving aside, bowing his head briefly to ask for forgiveness in disturbing the image. Iselyth joined him having heard the commotion, looking over the revealed door and empty frame. He was examining the bolts when he felt her tap against his shoulder, pointing at internal hinges on the carving's frame, shiny along sheared edges.

He did not understand as her shoulders twitched briefly and helmet shook.

The bolts were likely sufficient to keep out any inquisitive explorers. They were not, however, sufficient to halt an Astartes. Mouthing another apology for the further desecration, he simply punched the door from its frame, slamming it across the small entryway revealed behind. Plaster shook loose from the walls and ceiling, the echoing flat bang of the impact reverberating through the chapel and tunnels beyond.

Qin led the way, having to turn sideways and hunker down to squeeze through the human-scaled opening. Within was a small chamber, now in ruins from the abrupt launching of the door. Chairs were scattered about along with parchments and chapbooks. A tunnel vanished off to the left, descending sharply down corkscrew stairs into darkness. Stumps of candles rolled about.

Now, however, was the time for answers. Gingerly he picked up and leaned the door against the fractured frame before turning to the eldar.

'What I search for will be below. You say what you seek is there too? I would know what it is before we go any farther.'

'It is nothing that concerns you.' She gestured for him to continue, tone dismissive. Instead he stepped closer, looming over the smaller alien.

'I am making it my concern.' Her helmet turned as she looked at the descending stairs, then back to him in the half-light filtering past the door.

'Very well. It is a webway portal. A small one. I am to seal it.' She produced a cube of shimmering material, inscribed with strange runes. 'It is a simple act and will shut this portal forever. As I said. It does not concern your kind.'

'A webway portal. Here.' The idea was preposterous. One of their eldritch paths here, beneath the Chapel? And it had not been discovered?

'I can see your doubt. It has been buried for millennia and it is inactive. Without the right tools you could never see it.' She hefted her shuriken cannon, gesturing toward the corkscrew stairs. 'I speak only the truth. What reason do I have to lie? May we?' He gauged Iselyth: her relaxed and confident pose, the loose grip on her shuriken cannon, hefted and leaning against her shoulder. Her honesty in the past, the apparent lack of duplicity in the creature.

He told himself their recent actions held no bearing.

'As you say.' Lamenting the scale of the stairwell, he wedged himself in and began the descent, only occasionally battering against the close walls.

* * *

Considering the loss of his helmet and the pitch blackness of the vaults, he had to resort to relying on the lume. No doubt the eldar's helmet could penetrate the stygian stillness, but even his own enhanced sight could do nothing if there was not a whit of light to rely on. Each step drew them deeper into the catacombs as the stair ran downward, plunging into the planet. Treads stained by age and worn by the tread of centuries into a noticeable dip marched away and around, too small for his scale and too shallow for the eldar's stride. They were both uncomfortable, descending the corkscrew stair, constantly scraping the ceiling with bowed head and helm.

It was a relief when they exited past empty candle-holders and found themselves in a tiled corridor, walls naked stone, ceiling finally climbing to shadowed vaults higher above. They passed empty austere cells, reserved for monks in contemplation, following the slanted tunnel as it plunged deeper. Twists and turns brought them to different branches and shuttered doors, but he knew the most precious of relics would be kept in the deepest and most secure location.

There was no risk of being led astray or lost. Their route practically shone in his mind, every twist and turn leading back up to the surface. For her part Iselyth stuck close behind him, within the warm sphere of light from the lume. She held her claw at the ready, though it was clear the place had not seen visitors since before the fall of Incandry's Rest many months previous. Dust dripped from empty braziers with cold candles, swirling about their feet. Rust stained circuit boxes that protruded occasionally from the wall, linked to dead, caged lumes. It spoke to the speed and indomitable force of the devourer: not a single priest had been able to sequester themselves in the vaults before the city had been reaved of life.

He led Iselyth past another branch, directing her down another mostly indistinguishable tunnel when, quite anticlimactically and quietly, it was over. The tunnel simply became a vault, claustrophobic walls dropping away to either side into gloom and darkness, filled with shrouded shapes and steel-bound chests. The lume's glow spread, glinting off of relics here and there. There was a bust of Sanguinius, pale marble topped with leaf gold. Here was a thick tome, coated in dust. Yet farther was a collection of skulls, likely martyrs, stacked nearly with dense script worked about the empty orbits.

In the centre of the room, touched by the radiance of the lume, was a simple standard. Uncovered, unhidden, planted in a finely wrought base. Simply waiting. The prize his squad had died for, the prize he had spent months pursuing.

It hung limp in the stillness: a broad, stained, tattered banner emblazoned with the sigil of his Chapter, stitched with a hundred names of heroes and brothers fallen and revered. An aquila perched atop the pole, wings outstretched, made of ceramite and gilt in gold and auramite. Trailing parchments dangled from the statue, utterly still in the dead air.

The Chunul's Banner, gifted to the governor of Incadry's Rest to commemorate Chunul's final stand on this very world. A renowned relic, planted in victory on a hundred worlds in twice that many years.

All else vanished in that moment. He approached with reverence, even tinged with awe, gazing at the rich jade of the fabric, at the golden threads picking out names he knew as well as his own. He could not help himself: he reached out with uncertain fingers to stroke across the banner, proving to himself that this was true. The flecks of blood were there, just as he had always heard, dried in a wide spatter, crusted and permanent on the stained fabric. The lifeblood of a hero, surrendered willingly.

Chunul's Banner. Untouched.

The smoke that had stained the fringes had been from ten thousand corpses of greenskins, purified by promethium. It had bullet holes from the damned legions. A warp in the pole was from the grip of Chunul himself, left behind from his martyrdom as he fought to the bitter end, never letting the standard droop.

Now it was in his hands. He lifted it from its stand, letting the skull-shaped pommel thud against the tile floor of the vault as he gazed up at the aquila. The regal gaze of the icon glared down, flecks of shadow and light from the lume at his belt catching and stirring life into the cold eyes. The end of this ordeal was in sight at long last. The death of his squad would be honored and his Chapter's dignity preserved. Every night he imagined this moment, though now that he held in his own hands the Bannerhe could scarcely conceive of it. It should have been his _arbana_, at the least, to claim this honor. Or the Company Champion. What right did he have?

He was the only one here. The honor was his. The frown of the aquila mocked his uncertainty. His right was earned in blood and trial and survival.

'Eldar,' he called, 'do what you must do. I have my prize.'

'I have told you my name,' she said, crouching near to one of the walls.

'Yes, you have.'

'Never mind.' Her gauntlet-clad hand waved through seemingly empty air, a strange lensing dancing in its wake. Odd words in her tongue filled the air, a point of white light appearing in one clenched fist. Filtered between tightly wrapped fingers, the light hurled harsh rays around the vault. Witchery. He took an instinctive step forward, canting his body to protect the Banner, ready to intercede, but she held up her free hand, palm out.

'Wait.' He struggled with it, to stand down as the eldar enacted some ritual. The light grew, picking out ink-dark shadows in the hard glare, reflecting off of ornaments and holy symbols. Rainbows skittered and slithered along the walls, random prismatic flashes momentarily overwhelming his occulobe as he grimaced.

As quickly as it began the light faded, lessening to a simple glow in her fist and her helmet bobbed in a nod.

'Finished. The portal is sealed and nothing may gain entrance.' Whatever she held, whatever had summoned the light she tucked back in a mesh bag, one that had never been opened around him. 'It seems we both have our prize. Let us-'

He was moving before he even knew why. Superhuman senses picked out the shifts in air pressure, the slightest motion that fired adrenal glands. Even as he realized the danger his feet were pounding the tile, boots shattering the ceramic and flinging chips to tumble slowly in his passage.

Chunul's Banner hung in the air, barely moving as he released it, practically launching himself at Iselyth. Time slowed, the air thickened to soup as his body poured adrenaline and potent stimulants into his system. Both hearts surged oxygenated blood to his limbs as he reached. _Reached. _From the floating motes of dust - from the very air itself it seemed - congealed murder personified, spearing out of the gloom.

A single long spar of chitin and flesh, hooked, barbed, razor-edged.

Iselyth was facing him, slowly flinching away from his unexpected charge, beginning to slide into a combat stance. The barest sketch of a shape lurked farther behind, just beyond the glow of the luma bouncing against his thigh. The faintest light edged and picked out spines and scutes, night-dark, the barest hint of sheen from saliva-coated fangs. The spearing claw itself came down at an almost glacial pace, a scale geologic; a tenderness that reached for the eldar's exposed back. Uncomfortable and unwelcome helplessness clenched at his hearts, squeezing his chest as he strained.

His hand, outstretched, seemed miles away. Lightyears. Parsecs.

Sound worked out from his throat, nonsense filling the air as he reached, reached, reached. Strained.

Fingers brushed the tall fan of tattered and stained hair that topped her helmet, weaving into the strands, and as he gripped tight the flow of time seemed to return. Qin hurled her bodily down to the dusty floor, face-first.

Iselyth struck the tile hard enough to fracture her breastplate, helmet clacking off the tile as she sprawled in a tangle of limbs.

The claw punched deep but two handspans from her head, a sibilant hiss of hatred and disappointment curling from the shadows.

'Leaper!' His voice echoed strangely in the vault and he grabbed for his plasma pistol, fingers feeling enormous and slow. The shape was already gone, melting into the darkness and dust. Iselyth rolled onto her back, groaning and clutching at the ruin of her mask. Cracks webbed the entire front, leaving the lenses to drool powdered crystal down the crumbled bone cheeks.

Qin knelt, slapping aside the eldar's hands as she went to strike him, ignoring streams of what was likely invective in her own tongue. He took hold of her helmet, wrenching it free even as it fell apart in his fingers. She glared up at him through a mask of blood that poured from her nose and a gash on her forehead, strands of hair falling free from her tight bun to adhere to her face.

Then he slapped his hand over her mouth.

Both of Iselyth's hands wrapped around his wrist, trying to wrench free as she thrashed. A single finger he pressed to his lips and she seemed to understand, calming, eyes widening.

'I am sorry,' he murmured, 'but there was not time to warn you. Deathleaper, I suspect. Stay quiet.' He released her mouth and she spat blood, tongue running along her teeth, but only pink saliva spattered the ground.

'It entered behind us?' Qin shook his head in the negative, drawing his chainsword from its makeshift sling, tentatively stroking the ignition lever.

'I suspect is has always been in here. Waiting for us to lower our guard.'

'There was one entrance, _mon'keigh._'

'A place such as this would have several for cases of emergency or secrecy. The one in the Chapel was merely the only I knew I could find.' Her stare could have killed a lesser man as she drew her legs under her to rise, picking up her discarded shuriken cannon.

'And you did not think to tell me?'

'It is reasonable to assume. I-' he trailed off, realizing. He had assumed she would know. His brothers would have - even any Guardsman would consider it. But she was neither. She was eldar. Xeno. Not human.

'I presumed. Now you know.' A strangled noise of irritation died in her throat as they scanned the vault. Nothing but dim shapes in the waning glow of the lume, receding into pitch-darkness. The beast could be anywhere. Circling them. Unconsciously they edged closer, back-to-back, facing out of the light. Iselyth pressed fingers to her nose, gingerly feeling the torn cartilage, crimson painting the tips of her gloved fingers.

'You've broken my nose,' she remarked.

'And I have recognized that. I am going to shut off the lume.'

It was a weakness. It let their hunter see perfectly and his occulobe struggled to compensate. His free hand found the switch, where it dangled from his belt. The eldar said nothing to stop him.

'I hope you can see in the dark,' Qin said, and flicked it off.

They drowned in it. Total, all-encompassing blackness, the sort that pressed against eyes and throats, overpowering in its totality. Almost suffocating with the silence of the catacombs.

It mattered little, for he was Astartes.

With minute cants of his head, he listened, ears pricking and hearing deepening. He sniffed, smelling shifts in the aroma of old mold and dusty tomes, feeling the minute shifts in air currents along his bare arms. He was blind, yes, but his other senses stepped in to bridge the gap. A tap there. A barely registered scuff here.

'Circling us…' Iselyth whispered, surprisingly quiet despite his straining senses. Her voice sounded strange, deeper, harsher, but he attributed it to the tension of the moment. 'We cannot remain here.' She was correct, of course, though it bothered him that she spoke it first. It was too open, too many avenues for assault. They needed to re-enter the tunnels proper, to use the cramped confines to force the creature to only two possible lanes of assault.

They had no way to communicate beyond speech. No vox, no helmets. He redoubled his grip on his chainsword, and reached behind him, finding her elbow and tugging. The message was clear, her retreating steps mirroring his as he led them toward the location of the exit. Her back brushed against his as they moved, the contact reassuring. The layout was clear in his mind as he crept forward, careful to maneuver around locked cases and reliquaries, touching nothing and disturbing nothing. His feet brushed alongside the Banner and he stooped to pull it up, wincing at the deafening rustle of fabric.

That he had dropped it without second thought did not yet penetrate his focus.

The deathleaper did not come for them as they stole toward the entrance of the vault. He heard - he suspected - the clack of talon on ceramic, the rustle of scaled flesh against stone as it followed, shadowing them at a distance. In his mind he saw it, lithe and low, creeping over artifact and locked chest, picking past holy relics with an infinite, feral hunger. He could feel its eyes on them, boring holes like a target las into his back. Waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

The walls closed in around him, sound pitching and changing, the scent of damp earth and old plaster filling his nose as they retreated.

But there were other exits in the vault that he had seen. Where they led – if they linked back up to the labyrinthine catacombs and where – that was the question.

Behind him, striding backward to match his slow stride, Iselyth readied her shuriken cannon, holding it firmly, butted against her shoulder. His plasma pistol still he kept close at hand in its makeshift sling, though it hummed, uncharged. Only the slightest, faintest tinge of azure energy tingled amongst its coils.

He retreated.

Retreated.

Reversed his mental map of the catacombs, traced their route, frowned at the unknown branches of dozens of tunnels that fed in and crept away. So many possible ambushes, so many unknowns.

This was terrain he did not know and could not trust. The deathleaper may have been here for weeks or months, turning this warren into its own impregnable retreat.

He had the Banner. He had his chainsword. And he had his faith. Faith that the Host would find him, that his squad would be honored and his duty fulfilled. None of that would come to pass deep underground, his body sliced apart by a xeno.

It left one viable outcome.

He was going to kill it. It was that simple.

Iselyth, as if sensing his certainty, broke the expectant silence.

'Qin…' she spoke, saying not his species nor his purpose, but his name. 'Qin…if I fall, you will take my waystone.' He caught the same harsh edge to her tone, a strange caustic, emotionless severity.

He recalled the jewelry from the night before, the fiery stone nestled between her breasts. Some eldar sentimentality, no doubt. Worthless at a time like this, and what use would he have of some trinket?

'You will promise this. Take my waystone and this bag I carry. Take them and return them to my people.'

'Now is not the time-' he hissed, trying to block out her whispers, perturbed by the edge of not-quite-fear in them.

'Now is the only time. Qin. Promise this. Swear it. _Swear it_.' Sentimentality but he heard her heartrate increase as she spoke, smelled the prickle of inhuman sweat.

'You are afraid.'

To his amazement he was…surprised. That should not be. An alien was craven, incapable of understanding courage. Yet in his mind he found the idea of the eldar fearful to be…as strange as mating. As unexpected.

'There is no fear. There is duty and there is death. Swear this to me, human. _Swear it_.' They passed what he sensed was the yawning mouth of a tributary passage. The air felt different as the wall beside him vanished, a shift in the subtle gusts and scents of the catacombs. A different tone to their footfalls.

Duty. That he could understand.

'You fear failure.' Her words were practically choked, forced out past clenched teeth.

'Swear. It.' She asked him the impossible, to make oaths to an alien. He understood duty, if this was part of what was demanded of her, this critical delivery. There was more, he was sure: she was eldar, after all, and all words held backward meaning. He felt his Chaplain frown. The alien held no honor. No duty, no legacy. Their only duty was to die at the righteous hands of Man. Their only honor the purity of their destruction; their legacy overwritten.

The eldar dashed beside the carnifex, blade seeking for its throat. The eldar crouched over him as he choked around swollen tongue, limbs twitching as scarlet agonies clawed along his bloodstream.

'You have my word. I swear on my honor.' They continued a moment in silence, oh-so-slowly backtracking, before she made responded.

He heard nothing but a low snarl. Whatever had struck the eldar, he hoped it would not diminish her capability in combat. Again he reached back, touching her arm to direct her.

'We follow the rightmost branch.'

The deathleaper, wherever it was, was canny. Cunning and patient, it surely stalked them just beyond the edges of hearing and smell. Over and over he was tempted to light the lume, to crank it to its highest yield if even for a glimpse of the beast.

Yet for every second it waited and lurked they drew a step closer to escape. Every passageway passed was one fewer opportunity for ambush.

He stopped short, Iselyth's back pressing against his.

'It's here.'

His thumb slowly stroked the ignition of his chainsword, fingers flexing about the trigger. His right hand curled tight about the solid haft of the Banner, feeling the warp and indentation left by his betters. A link to the Host, a source of strength.

He heard nothing. Scented nothing. His eyes, wide, strained in the pitch darkness.

It leapt without warning, only the briefest of clicks of adamantine-hard keratin on stone. Instinct guided him. Chainsword, howling, met a thunderous blow that slammed him sideways into the wall, musty plaster erupting in a dense, choking cloud. He heard Iselyth shout, barely audible above the teeth-aching shriek of shuriken fire in such an enclosed space and they were alone. The pressure gone, the creature vanished.

Qin stumbled free of the indent he left, crouching to drag bare fingers along the tile. Only dust and flakes of plaster. No wet hint of the eldar's success.

'Missed,' he grunted, and Iselyth bit out a harsh syllable in her tongue.

The growl of his chainsword, scant comfort, trailed off into a serious of coughs and then silence as he allowed the motor to disengage. There was only the patter of plaster still raining from his body and the fractured wall.

Onward.

The remained in the same formation: Qin leading, Iselyth following, guiding with subtle whisper and gentle direction through branches and intersections.

They were getting closer. It felt like hours, days even, in his heightened state, but could not have been even half as long. The catacombs were deep and broad, but still minor compared to the sprawling tunnels and twisting passages that could be found in the depths of a hive. He tried to remember other times, far more troubling times. The waist-deep sludge of Pastorex where their bodies sweated and steamed in the hard radiation. Pursuing greenskins through the petrified forests of Xevon when each step could end in a blossom of crude explosives and cruel shrapnel.

Yet none of those times had felt as raw as now.

Before, Qin had always had his brothers.

They passed yet another yawning entrance of a chamber, no different than a dozen others, unconsciously speeding up their pace as the eerie void left them exposed.

This time it was Iselyth who sensed it, shouting as she leapt, darting away from Qin even as he met the threat. It was the Banner that struck the blow, glancing off hard scale and hide as he overbalanced from his swing, staggering into the chamber. Blinded, off-kilter, he rebounded from furniture and swung again, wildly, aiming at nothing, simply hoping to keep it at bay.

An acidic hiss burbled in response, sounding practically amused. The eldar's shuriken cannon screamed again, the _flit-flit-flit _of razored discs meeting stone proving her aim false yet again.

'Iselyth! To me!' He heard her scramble, clattering against tile, her cannon screaming a second time.

Another long, amused hiss.

He lurched toward where he heard her, groping blindly in the dark. His fist closed on smooth fabric and he yanked, bodily hauling her into the chamber with him, throwing her back and over what felt like a broad pew.

Just in time to flinch aside as a gust of driven air heralded the deathleaper's next attack. The wind of its passage kissed along his face, reek of old meat and offal filling his nose. He had a sense of the creature's size and mass hurtling past but inches away. A long line of ice lit across his chest where it's claw drug past, too shallow for a telling strike but enough to mark him.

The eldar swung, her salvaged claw slicing the air with the same hollow whistle as their attacker. A clatter of talon on stone, a hiss, and Iselyth shouted – screamed – a sound that slashed at his hearts.

This was no ambush, no probing strike – the leaper meant to slay them here, now.

No time for thought, for planning – the lume flared to life as he cast aside his chainsword, yanking it free of his belt and cranking it to highest yield. The room flared with stark light, blindingly white, his occulobe physically aching as it struggled to adjust.

There it was: a broad, dark shape pinned by the luminance, perched over the prone form of the eldar.

He saw it.

The single great scything claw, held barely at bay by her stolen blade, clenched hard in both hands. He saw the second claw, stunted and pale, held close to its chest protectively. The jagged scar and gnarled crater in its flank, the telltale mark of a mass reactive. It was the same leaper. The same one that had ambushed them months previous, the same he had struck down with a careful bolt, the owner of the severed claw Iselyth used even now to hold its former owner at bay.

Blood, rich and crimson flowed from hands clenched tight around the blade, staining arms to match a deep rent across one thigh, the wet scent of it rich in the stale air. Her teeth were bared, stained with blood that still trickled from her nose, lips drawn back in a rictus of hatred and pain.

The deathleaper swiveled its hateful head, dead eyes locking on him. Glassy, lifeless orbs, utterly devoid of any thought or feeling. Filled with depthless hunger.

It judged the eldar.

Then him.

Then the eldar.

It chose.

Qin was the greater threat, the eldar wounded and supine.

Muscles bunched, its mass shifted.

Moments to act.

Beneath his fingers was the indented grip left by a hero of his chapter. Chunul. He felt the ancient there, a ghost at his shoulder. The faintest image of jade-armored gauntlets overlaid his bare arms, ceramite-clad fingers overlapping with his own.

_The Emperor protects. _His lips formed the words even as the tyranid launched at him.

Qin met it head on, unflinching.

There was impact and staggering pressure, then the point of the claw burst from his back. No pain, not yet.

That he knew would come. Chunul's hand guided him. Qin lashed out with the Banner.

Before its lesser claws could peel him apart, he jammed it into the beast's mouth, the decorative aquila's wings gouging and wedging fast in its mandibles, jerking it bodily backwards and away. Flailing, the tips of its secondary limbs gouged crimson valleys down his chest, unable to find true purchase.

'The Emperor protects,' he gasped, agony slamming into him like a Rhino, knees loosening. The deathleaper, bound to him by the impaling claw yet held at bay by the indomitable Banner fell too, struggling to free itself. Ichor poured from its maw, steaming on the tiles.

'_Qin!' _The eldar lay on her side, one hand fisted against her slashed thigh, the other held out imploringly. The same expression of nearly deranged hatred twisted her features, eyes wide and bloodshot.

Trembling fingers drew his plasma pistol from its holster, strength draining away even as his Larraman cells tried to plug the catastrophic damage in his chest. There was no way he could aim nor pull the trigger, all his will focused on holding the beast at bay and in place. A twitch of his wrist and he cast it aside, the venerable weapon clattering across the floor. Both hands wrapped about the haft of the Banner and he glared at the creature.

'This is not where I die,' his words were mangled by clenched teeth, bursting hot bubbles of blood on his lips but he met the atavistic fury of the trapped tyranid pound for pound, pinning it in place. Its own claw trapped by the prison of his body, wedged tight by the punctured rib-plate.

Iselyth caught the pistol, finger mashing down the trigger. The sun itself extended a finger across the vault, a moment of unbearable heat washing across him, searing his exposed skin and Qin howled. The deathleaper eroded: a sketch of shape in the glare and then gone, rendered into drifting ash and a puddle of molten keratin.

The Banner remained untouched, aquila glowing so brightly it was painful to look upon.

Qin slumped back with the claw, now terminating in a charred stump, waving above him. His head struck the floor and bounced, the impact muted and dull. Everything was muffled as his Emperor-given body struggled to cope. His feet felt infinitely distant, his body pulling apart in a hundred directions, sliding down and away from his awareness as he gasped air into scorched lungs. Distantly he felt the haft of the Banner still in one hand, cool to the touch.

The light was slowly fading as the lume ran down, its cell expended in the sudden flare. There was an unfortunate symbolism to that, he supposed, his declaration to the leaper ringing hollow.

A thin face came into view, drawn tight and grey from pain. No longer twisted by anger she looked drained and exhausted. Trembling hands found the claw, yanking it free in a wash of gore, fresh gamma-bursts of agony crackling along overstrained nerves. It anchored him in the here and now, shocking away the growing darkness.

'Hello, Qin. Are you dead?'

Mental discipline and conditioning tried to shut the worst of the pain away, compartmentalizing and processing. His chest was a riot of clenching anguish, brutalized nerves and ruptured muscles shrieking their displeasure.

But he felt both hearts beating.

One lung burbled and struggled, but his tertiary inflated with a tremor and he breathed.

A brutal blow, but one he would weather.

'No,' he murmured, staring up at the ceiling. 'I suspect I am not.' Gritting his teeth he pushed himself up to lean on his elbow, the trickle of gore and bright, oxygenated blood already slowing from the sucking wound just below his right breast. Iselyth was easily a match: her hands shook as she pressed against her thigh, deep lacerations across each palm from where she had held the leaper at bay. Her face was nearly covered in dried blood from nose and forehead, bright eyes shining from behind the crusted mask.

For a moment they both tended to themselves – Qin probing gently at the edges of the hole in his chest, Iselyth binding her hands and thigh with strips of fabric from her pack. He caught sight of the Banner, lying beside him, spotless and unstained by the demise of the deathleaper, even at so close a proximity. The aquila still shone with an inner light, spread wings rippling with luminescence.

'_The Emperor protects,_' he murmured and tugged it closer, propping it upright so that it might not lie on the ground. Iselyth glanced over as he struggled to his feet, leaning heavily against it. His chainsword was discarded halfway across the chamber, plasma pistol left where the eldar had dropped it. Asking the machine spirits for forgiveness, he held out a hand to the alien where she sat. Hands grasping each other's forearms he hauled her to her feet.

It was like this that they stumbled out into the ruins of the Shrine of Saint Orbek as the sun slowly sank toward the horizon. They were practically holding each other up – the Banner a third point of solidity that kept them upright. Aspect Warrior and Space Marine, Eldar and Human, torn and tattered but unbowed, they sank into a fire-scorched and chipped pew. Qin let the Banner rest against the wall.

Ascending the stairs had tugged and plucked at his wound, tearing muscles anew and jostling damaged organs, grinding the chips of bone from his ribs against each other. Pinkish bubbles still burst at the corner of his mouth, each careful breath spiking a dagger through his chest as his punctured lung quivered. Iselyth had fared no better, the deep gash along her thigh robbing that leg of all strength.

But now they were clear, out of the catacombs, out of the dark. The sky above was clear, cloudless; stars emerging in the velvet expanse as the last rays of the sun stubbornly clung to day. The eldar let out a long, shuddering breath, stretching her wounded leg out on the pew.

'So. We still live.'

'The Emperor protects.' This time he said it with a wry amusement – the common declaration tasting strange in his mouth when spoken to an alien. She held out her right hand, palm flat. Around the angry line across her palm was the shine that spoke of burns from an overstressed plasma weapon – and the indentation of a two-headed eagle. A perfect match to the icon worked into the grip of his plasma pistol.

'As you say.' She sighed and leaned against him, resting her head against his shoulder. They lingered in silence. His body was alive with heat and aches chewing at his wounds. The bone-deep throb pulsing in his breast slowly lessened as he burned through reserves, prodigious biology doing its work. Without an apothecary he could but trust in his gifts. It would be days until the wound was fully closed, and more after that before he could even hope for his lung to be viable. In the meantime he could but bear the waves of feverish heat and the teeth-clenching pinches and sudden spikes of pain.

As for the eldar – he hoped she would heal. There was nothing he could do to aid her: all his knowledge was in the inflicting of wounds, not in the treatment of such. But Iselyth was hardy, that was proven time and again. He watched the stars overhead, through the ragged rafters of the Shrine as the hours passed. If the eldar was awake or asleep she gave no sign, still but for the rise and fall of her chest. He found constellations in the thickets of stars and strands of twinkling lights, watching them wheel past. The Great Rift rose as night drew on – that baleful, hateful band of unnatural color that spanned the sky.

Somewhere beyond that was Terra, where the Emperor in his eternal watch sat. Somewhere so far away, across all those trackless lightyears was his ultimate sire, the Master of all Mankind.

Somewhere out there was a son of the Emperor, a godlike Primarch stepped out from the mists of time in this most darkest of hours.

All so very, very far away.

So far away from an empty, feral world filled with ruins and hungering creatures from the depths of ancient humanity's fears.

So far from a broken chapel where an eldar slumbered and a Space Marine wondered at the sky.

The Emperor Protects, Qin thought.

But in what ways?

* * *

In time his wound closed, becoming a massive, hardened scab centered in a livid bruise of black and purple that spread across his broad chest. The gouges torn by the scrabbling lesser claws of the tyranid became but thin white lines. Iselyth's palms healed quickly, though the scar of the burn remained. Her thigh took longer and the eldar spent many mornings in long stretches and exercises as the muscle repaired itself.

Autumn deepened and winter threatened, days shortening and speeding past, bursts of snowfall here and there leaving crusts of fragile ice in the lee of buildings and beneath gnarled trees.

They saw no tyranids. The Chapel, by unspoken agreement, became their refuge. The pews removed, crude patches applied to the gashes in roof and wall. The image of the Emperor, graven in stone, replaced over the secret entrance. The Banner planted atop the altar, overseeing the stark interior.

It was a state of being utterly unknown to him. He had no purpose. Nothing to _do. _He was a Space Marine, an Angel of Death, an expression of the fury of humanity. He was not made to…exist. In a way he cursed finding the Banner. When it had still been out of reach, he had a goal. Something to achieve. A reason to forge through the tyranid infested forests.

Qin took to searching the city. He tore apart the starport, up to his elbows in the scorched remnants of lighters and trans-atmospheric craft. None of it he understood – he was no techmarine. He could fly anything in the arsenal of the Adeptus Astartes, but these craft were civilian. He pulled apart the remains of Russes and field pieces, finding rusted and ruined vox that he cast aside in disgust.

It was, in a way, the perfect hell. As he strength returned (though his lung remained painful and catching) he had no outlet, nothing to do.

* * *

The Valkyrie fell out of the sky with all the abruptness and grace of a theatre assassination. One moment and the only sounds were the wind in the ruins and distant chirping of birds, the next turbofans howled and the gunship roared low over the clutching, skeletal skyline of the city.

Qin could barely believe his eyes. The stubby craft heeled over, doubling back, and it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. It slammed in for a heavy landing in the broad avenue before the Shrine, coming to a halt surrounded by steam and venting exhaust.

He was standing before the ramp even as it lowered, revealing a red-lit interior filled with mortals.

A niggling sense of wrongness bloomed in his mind – a Valkyrie, not a Thunderhawk.

Not a single Astartes among them.

An officer stepped down the ramp, coming to a halt before him and falling to one knee, head bowed.

'Lord Astartes! I am Major Menbrecht, we followed your beacon. Are there any others with you?'

After so many months with only the eldar as company, the proportions of a human seemed momentarily strange to him – shorter, less lithe and elongated. But there was a reassuring solidity to the man's frame and the heavy brocade great-coat festooned with the familiar emblems of the Imperium warmed him.

'I fear I am the only one, Major Menbrecht. I am Brother Qin, Jade Host Fifth Company. You spoke of a beacon?'

'Yes, Lord. We detected your locator beacon upon exiting the immaterium. An automated signal, but with clear Jade Host identifiers.'

'I carry no beacon, Major, but if it broadcasts, where are my brothers? Why do they not accompany you?' The Major shifted, unease clear on his face.

'Lord Qin…how long have you been on this world?'

'My squad deployed as the Devourer made planetfall. You will answer my question.' The man gulped, drawing a hand across his brow, casting a glance back up into the Valkyrie at the motionless shapes of seven other Guardsmen, all standing uneasily in the hold.

'Lord…the Jade Host is no more. The Chapter was declared lost after a pitched engagement with the Devourer over this very world.'

The man was speaking nonsense. Words in gothic that did not go together, phrases that did not make sense. He was telling Qin that gravity had reversed, that the sun no longer shone.

'Speak sense, man. 'Declared lost'. What madness has taken you?' He advanced a step, bearing down on the man, looming over him and casting the mortal into shadow. The major shrank back, backpeddling.

'Reports indicate the _Argent Lance _engaged the tyranids in pitched battle and was lost, with all hands. It was a wretched loss, including the Naval elements that had accompanied-'

A wet hacking cut off the Major's words, but Qin was far away. Months. _Months_. All he ever thought of was returning to his brothers. His faith had never wavered. Never once did he feel abandoned on this hollow world, and even in his dalliance with the eldar still he longed for the day his Chapter would find him.

Declared lost. The _Argent Lance_, gone.

Dull roaring filled his ears, visions of the _Lance _dancing before him – the feasting halls, filled with dangling banners and warm crackling incense. The quiet meditation gardens, the arming chambers filled with jests and boasts and the smell of lapping powder.

'Qin!' Iselyth's sharp voice sliced through his thoughts, blowing apart the memories.

Menbrecht's face was purple, the man struggling at arm's length, held aloft by Qin's fist about his throat.

Numb fingers released the mortal, who fell to his knees wheezing, two other sailors rushing to his aid as the others brought weapons to bear on the alien. Qin staggered back, automatically reacting to the treat.

'Lower your weapons!' he barked, grateful to shove aside the staggering immensity of his loss if only for a moment. 'Lower them! This eldar is under my protection.' The armsmen shared uneasy glanced, none of them lowering their lasguns. He lifted drew his chainsword, holding it low and unpowered, the threat obvious.

'Lower. Your. Weapons.' He bit out the words, letting the rising anger at their disobedience and clear threat to his ally blot out the gnawing horror of what might be. Slowly the barrels wavered, fell, pointed at the deck. Menbrecht coughed, finding his feet, hand held to his throat.

'Lord,' he choked, voice hoarse and rough, but Qin felt no guilt. Iselyth came to his side, pointedly empty-handed, her own weapons still well-stowed and untouched. 'Lord, I am sorry to bear this news, but we must away this world. It is decreed to be burned, so that the Devourer might not recover.'

'You will remain here and wait. I will not leave without the Banner.' Menbrecht opened his mouth, as if to argue, before snapping it shut and nodding sharply, still massaging his throat.

'As you say. Lord. I will vox the _Somnus Temptor_ and inform them. I implore you – be swift.'

It took mere minutes to reach the Shrine and remove the Banner from its makeshift base, but he paused in the narthex, looking back into the nave itself. Many days passed here, all filled with hope for the future, waiting for his brothers to find him. Trapped as if in amber, held in stasis with Iselyth. The eldar with her quiet meditations and wanderings, and the sparring they had begun, learning from one another.

It was at an end, and now perhaps all things he knew were at an end. The Banner he bore, the proud emblem of the Host on smoke-stained banner – this might be the last remnant of his beloved order. He might be the last.

Qin bowed his head, silently asking the Emperor for strength, for guidance. For even a minute fraction of His infinite will to be turned to this bereft and riven stretch of the Imperium, where a lonely son was besieged on all sides by uncertainty.

As if to compound it, he felt Iselyth's soft touch at his arm, a gentle squeeze on his bicep. As if to let him know she was still there.

He pulled away from her, stomping out of the Shrine, out into the wan light of winter.

'With me, eldar. To the hells with this damned world.'


	3. Between the Stars

**THOUGHT OF THE DAY: HE WHO ALLOWS THE ALIEN TO LIVE SHARES ITS CRIME OF EXISTENCE.**

* * *

**A GRIM PROCESSION** swept down the battered halls of _Somnum Temptor_. Like the sector – like the Imperium at large – the cruiser was old. Its bones were scuffed, fraying at the seams, worn down by age and too much action. Lumens flickered and dimmed, throwing inconsistent shadow across the marching figures. Ancient servitors bumped into walls, droning out quiet binaric in nonsense streams. Menials hurried past, hushed and equal parts suspicious and awed.

Like the sector – like the Imperium at large – there was the incessant clawing of time and slapdash attempts to push it back. On stained bulkheads were scrawled aquilas in sloppy paint, daubed beneath slogans declaring 'The Emperor Protects!' and 'Cadia stands!' Crude icons stamped from refuse shell casings dangled from the eldritch nests of cabling and wires that snarled along vaulted ceilings to offer protection and ward off ill fortune. Here and there were rough but loving depictions of armored warriors in arboreal green edged in gold and crimson.

For Qin, lost in his own thoughts, his surroundings were a dull grey blur. The armsmen that flanked him and his erstwhile companion were anxious and on-edge, gripping tight stubbers held smartly across their chests. Eyes under helmets flicked to the xeno and away, as if unwilling to stare too long. Hardened by war and the endless strife brought forth by the opening of the Maledictum, each had served for years in the cold void. Today was a first for all of them.

An Astartes and an eldar: as different as could be, escorted through an Imperial warship.

Such was the shape of the galaxy, riven in two.

Everywhere were reminders of his brothers. The Jade Host's long and honored history alongside the sector fleet shone through in the markings and embellishments. The emblem of the Host accompanied the aquila and machina opus in blessing and investing the aging halls, lightening the grim decay. The coiled snake bisected by a radiant spear appeared over and over again. No different than the markings that once adorned his long-lost armor or even now waved above all their heads, emblazoned on the tattered and stained fabric of the Banner still clenched in his hand. Each time he saw the icon it stabbed at his hearts; unable not to wonder if that would be the final legacy of his Chapter: forgotten, aging markings scratched by long-dead mortals.

The rhythmic _tump-tump _of the Standard's pommel on the grated decking was the only noise beyond the occasional clearing of a throat or half-covered cough from the mortals. None spoke. Ostensibly such an escort was in his honor, yet since Iselyth's appearance the tension in the air had remained thick enough to be palpable. Menbrecht had the intelligence not to question Qin's pronouncement that she was an ally and under his protection. Nonetheless, for the entire ride from the surface fingers had danced just shy of triggers, uneasy glances constantly spearing the haughty alien across the dimly lit interior.

Iselyth, to her credit, had been fazed not at all and exuded an air of absolute calm. The only gaze she met was his own, expression constant and inoffensive. One might think it was a common occurrence for the eldar, being all alone aboard a vessel of the Imperium. Qin pointedly avoided glancing at her. Instead he took in the corridors and the grim, set expressions of their escort. To see the alien was to prompt uncomfortable thoughts. To resurface memories of joined flesh. What had seemed, well, not entirely _proper _now felt unseemly and wrong. The problem of Iselyth, one that he thought he had settled in the catacombs, now rose again to the forefront of his focus, vying with his gut-clenching concern over his Chapter.

If his Host was gone, if he were all that remained…the idea that the last feeling of companionship he had felt was with an _alien_ of all things was all but too much to bear.

It was a possibility he could hardly countenance. Still Menbrecht's words rung in his ears, just as they had since Valkyrie ascended from the surface, vectoring toward the small, battered flotilla in orbit.

_The Jade Host…is no more._

The more he chewed on those six words, the more the taste of them turned his stomach. If it was true - _if _it was true – the loss was staggering. Not just the deaths of so many brothers. Not just the loss of a Chapter of the Emperor's Own. No.

It was the history. The potential.

He had lost brothers. So very many. That was duty. That was what it was to be Astartes. Bayaran, brave, unquenchable Bayaran, whom he had known since a neophyte: dead at the hands of a greenskin. He had died laughing, crude iron sword through his guts as he ripped its tusks from its face. Uchuun. Vaporized without a trace by a traitor Titan. Even his geneseed lost. Just months ago, on the world below: his entire squad, beloved brothers he had served with for decades. That was duty. That was what it meant to be Astartes.

But the _history_. The _potential_.

When the Waaugh of Thundah Crackslab chewed away at the Host until barely half-strength remained, there was rebirth. The depredations of the Great Rift when it slashed the galaxy in two, unleashing daemons, heresy and traitors: there was loss, but there was renewal. The legacy of brothers fallen would invest the newly elevated and a new generation of the Host would emerge all the stronger. There would always be neophytes. There would always be the Host. Unbroken, unbent, as fierce as the stars and as free as the cosmic winds.

If the _Argent Lance _was lost, if the fleet of the Host was broken…

There would never be another Investiture of Heaven. No convocation in the vast hall of the _Lance_, heavy with incense and fires crackling from perfumed logs. No tables groaning under meats and cheeses and toasts raised of steaming _saktri_. No chants and shouts of challenge, no solemn recitation of battle-verse, no wrestling in the sandpits. The great welcoming of the next generation would never come. The Host was broken. Finally, eternally, and truly. Broken.

Qin was, perhaps, the last.

'_The Jade Host…is no more.'_

It could not be true. He would not allow it. He made the vow aboard the Valkyrie, wedged into a seat entirely too small for his frame. He swore to himself that Menbrecht was mistaken, that there was some hidden truth that indicated the survival of his kinsmen. Even as he watched the judgement of Incandry's Rest unleashed, he clung to that hope.

Macrocannon shells and magma bombs passed them on the flight skyward, hurtling past the ascending Valkyrie to unleash Imperial wrath on the doomed world. Each passage of the continent-shaking weaponry was silent, the munitions sliding past with the grim intensity of purpose as a pelagic predator. The interior of the dropship was lit again and again in stark crimson light as lance barrage after lance barrage delivered innumerable ergs of devastation but a dozen kilometers outside of their flight path.

Darkness into light. Light into darkness.

Hard edged shadows threw the silent troopers into sketches of humanity. Made Iselyth into a gaunt, stretched figure amidst the stockier forms of the armsmen. Bleached the color from his boots and greaves. Qin's gaze was locked on the Banner, gripped tight, pommel planted firmly on the corrugated decking. The Host could not be lost. He would not allow it to be so. Too much did not make sense; too much of his world had been shaken of late. This final blow he feared he could not weather.

Already the past months on the world seemed bizarre: not a memory but a fevered dream. Unreal. Long segments of calm, uneventful days blending and smearing together, punctuated by the visceral, crystal clear recollections of combat. It seemed almost unbelievable that so recently he nearly died in the catacombs, brought to his knees by a deathleaper just as Iselyth blasted it into so much ash. As if the thought alone had power, Qin's chest twinged in a deep-bone ache, the gory wound still yet healing.

It seemed ridiculous that they had ever come together, naked and wanting, in the quiet ruins. Impossible that he and an eldar had found such synchronicity.

That he should leave that behind only to learn this terrible truth was all too much.

He remembered his last moments alone with Iselyth on the world below. Her touch at his arm, the sympathy writ clear across her pointed face. A part of him was almost touched by the expression of concern; of an eldar of all things appearing to commiserate in his loss. Another part frowned at the thought of an alien truly feeling sorrow for the death of a Chapter of the Emperor's Finest. Should she not exult instead, in the knowledge that terrible foes of her kind were lost?

Then again, he knew her companions had been slain and Qin felt no particular exultation at their passing.

Like everything of late, there were too many possibilities. Too much uncertainty where there had once been only clarity of purpose.

* * *

Captain Etremedes was a hulking bear of a man, straining the seams of his pristinely pressed uniform. Still, he looked up to salute Qin, making the sign of the aquila and inclining his head in respect. His first officer in comparison was a slight woman, hawkish in demeanor, darkly complected like Etremedes, head shining and bald. She was introduced as Shystash Yovu and he noted the family name. Yovu was an accomplished naval dynasty, having produced several captains of some renown and in centuries past an admiral known well to the Host. A small servoskull hovered in the air on puffs of gasses, lambent torches in its sockets panning back and forth.

'Lord Astartes, you are most welcome aboard my ship. Allow me to be the first to offer my deepest regrets. The Jade Host's loss is most grievous. We are in mourning.'

Iselyth lingered by the shuttered door as if attempting to avoid notice.

Of course, that would be quite impossible. Etremedes' first officer was scowling openly, fixing the alien with a harsh glare. The Captain himself seemed only mildly phased, narrowing his eyes before turning his full attention to Qin. The tacticarium was otherwise empty, plotting maps and holotanks quiet, the few implanted servitors powered down. Beyond broad double doors behind Etremedes was the bridge of the _Temptor_, no doubt a hive of activity as the fleet prepared to break orbit.

'Your mourning is misplaced. I do not believe it. The Jade Host endures.' Etremedes shook his head, regret clear in his tone.

'My lord, it is unequivocal. The _Argent Lance _is lost. Vox communications confirm its presence here. Ident-signals in the wreckage match distress-hymnals to be expected from a vessel of such size.'

Qin scoffed, waving aside the assurance.

'The _Argent Lance _is a Battle Barge. You say there is wreckage, but where is her corpse?' He gestured at the slender armorglass windows, each taller than he and fitted between naked structural spars. 'I see fields of debris, but the devourer could not so wholly destroy such a vessel.'

'Perhaps it was consumed, or cast adrift between worlds –'

'Perhaps, perhaps, _perhaps_. Until I see my brothers dead, the Host endures.'

'It is clear, the _Argent Lance _was last seen with its escorting fleet in this very system-'

Qin slammed a palm flat on the broad briefing table, the crack of impact sharp. Yovu started.

'Lord Atobai is a master of the skies! He broke the back of a traitor fleet at Salient! Five to one!'

'And, my lord, the devourer is an amorphous and unexpected foe. Far greater forces have fallen before it and to my sorrow I am sure that that the Tyranid will continue to plague the Imperium.'

Again Qin pointed out the crystalflex windows. The false serenity of the debris fields winked and twinkled beyond, spread across the low orbits. As the Space Marine argued, unwilling or even perhaps unable to accept the words of Etremedes, Iselyth remained silent, a sketch of a figure lingering near the sealed doors. The eldar held her tongue and her own council as Qin grew more and more heated, arguing with the apologetic captain, pacing back and forth in the chamber. There would be signs. Evidence, beyond the circumstantial. Even the tyranid could not so thoroughly reduce a Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes to ruin.

Yovu, tearing her glare from the eldar, cleared her throat, interjecting.

'If it pleases you, Lord, we have vox recordings from Chaplain Qemu aboard the _Argent Lance_. If I might be allowed…?'

Etremedes gestured, and Qin nodded.

Vox recordings could be falsified. He would know the voice of his Wayfarer. Chaplain was but a title placed upon the role by outsiders, but Qemu was a Wayfarer, like all in the black-edged green. Both a guide and warden of the soul. That could not be constructed or spoofed. Yovu pressed runes on a handheld slate, fed to the servoskull by a vine-like cable. The little drone wobbled in the air. Static cracked and popped, loud and sharp, before a slightly distorted voice filled the room.

_'The Devourer recovers. Synaptic creatures are confirmed – if we do not break it here, the entire sub-sector is in peril-'_ Ice filled Qin's stomach. He knew the voice. He knew the accent, the cadence. Impossible. _Impossible_.

Wayfarer Qemu spoke from beyond the grave and every word was a weight hooking into Qin's bones.

_'Relay word! If our gambit fails, the Navy must burn this world. Burn it all! The Emperor Protects! Form the fury of the Wind! _Argent Lance _out._'

'This was the final vox-blurt detected, Lord. It seems that in their final actions, they saved us all.' Etremedes shook his head, truly apologetic, seemingly unfazed by an Astartes' growing anger. He rubbed his broad chin with a hand, lips pressed firm. 'After everything, to think even the devourer now washes up on our shores. We haven't recovered from the opening of the Rift. A splinter fleet could have wiped this sector clean.'

Qin did not answer.

There could be no mistake. That was Qemu.

But there could be no mistake. The Host could not just be _gone_.

An entire Chapter of the Emperor's Astartes did not just _die!_ Even in the maddest possibility, the wildest of misfortunes, there would be some survivors. Some would remain. To think that not only the _Argent Lance _but the _Tenebrous Dawn _and _Unbridled _and _Courser _would be lost along with their escort squadron down to the very last – nothing was so thorough. There would be some survivors. Thunderhawks. Saviour pods. Something!

'Lord?'

He forced himself to speak, to push words past the knot in his throat. To remember the honor of his Chapter, that Etremedes bore no fault as simply the bearer of ill news. There was nothing more to achieve here. The evidence mounted, and he could only turn away.

'Thank you, Captain. That was illuminating. We must discuss this further, but I am in need of time –time to-.' His throat sealed and he grimaced, at a loss for how to cope with the flush of emotions that clenched at his chest, that dulled the beat of his twin hearts.

'To rest, I am sure. Of course. Please, Lord, allow me to offer my own staterooms. I have no need of so much space; the bridge is enough for any with a love of the void.' The humor was poor, unnoticed, but attempted.

He waved off Qin's protestations that he needed only a simple cell, assuring that such a trifle was only the least he could do for one of the Emperor's Angels, especially considering the circumstances. Menbrecht was been brought into the room, given orders to guide Qin directly there along with fetching a medicae to examine his still-healing injuries. Then there was an awkward pause, a moment of tension as the eldar was remembered.

'Will the eldar…be remaining?' Etremedes asked, artificially polite.

Iselyth chose to speak for herself.

'I will find accommodation along with Qin. Surely there is enough room in your chambers?'

Etremedes' smile became fixed and he nodded.

'Surely. I will provide a guard, so that you may rest undisturbed.'

Iselyth bowed.

'My thanks for your generosity, Captain Etremedes.'

Her careful formality was not missed, even through Qin's fugue.

* * *

Incandry's Rest smoldered below him. Continental firestorms swept across the land, visible as broad smears of backlit cloud. The world was dying, killed not by a single stroke but by a thousand little cuts. The Devourer was judged to have been contained on the main supercontinent of the world and thus there fell the purging wrath of the Imperial Navy. Magma bombs, las-barrages, macro cannon – the barrage continued for hours as the three ships swept the continent of life from one coast to the other. There was no final, dramatic exclamation point for the death of a world as penned by cyclonic torpedo or virus bomb. No, Incandry's Rest would die slowly, over centuries, as the plumes of ash and smoke from the death of half its face fell in choking clouds across the surviving continents on the other side of the world. They would die beneath the rain of hot ash and the slow build of toxic fume.

The world was dead.

As dead as he was told his Chapter was.

Somewhere down there lost beneath the churn of broiling, iron-grey clouds, was the unmarked grave of his squad. Fearless Yaki, redoubtable Ilu, proud Mihan. They stood beside him, grey memories of laughing, furious, boundless energy. Qin watched the world burn and with it all he knew. Grief choked him, hopeless and helpless.

Out here, in the lower orbits, debris formed shoals and clouds, drifts like metallic snow that caught the distant sunlight in winking and sparkling sprays of light. A stream passed below them, filling a lower and speedier orbit and idly he wondered if the chips of light were once the _Argent Lance._

More – he wondered if he believed it.

Qin struggled to frame the idea, even still, days later. The final transmission from the _Argent Lance_, the urgent, stentorian voice of Wayfarer Qemu. '_The Devourer recovers. Synaptic creatures are confirmed – if we do not break it here the entire sub-sector is in peril-'_

He knew the voice. He knew it as well as his own. It could not be any other. All the code signifiers agreed. It _was _Qemu speaking via vox blurt from none other than _Argent Lance_.

Yet the battle-barge had not been present when his squad had dropped to the world, preparing for the simple mission of extraction. There had only been the strike cruiser _Unbridled _with another six squads aboard waiting in orbit. The rest of the Jade Host's spaceborne armada was several systems away, regrouping and resupplying. That they somehow came to be _here_ – not only at Incandry's Rest but yet also lost to the tyranid?

Without the Jade Host the sector was fracturing. The silence from Terra was deafening without the strong voice of Lord Atobai, Master of the Skies and Host, to replace it. Planetary governors were arguing with one another and ecclesiarchs claiming to know the divine will of the Emperor appeared seemingly daily. The Fabricator-General of the sector's lone Forge-World had already sealed herself off, claiming that disorder did not serve the Machine God. Only the elements of the Imperial Navy, owing to their close association with the Jade Host, maintained order, often at threat of violence. Gunboat diplomacy, Captain Etremedes termed it. A full briefing, as much as could be gleaned from scattered astropathic prayers and hand-delivered notes on battered couriers was offered, but Qin declined, accepting only a dataslate with a general digest on the status of the sector after his long absence.

It shamed Qin how quickly those who should bear unflagging faith and fealty to the throneworld could turn on one another.

It shamed him that his Chapter had failed so miserably. They were made to shepherd this sector. Like the steppe kings in their ancient palaces, the Jade Host had been the firm hand that guided this sector for millennia. Only in death did duty end, so said the living, but Qin was not dead. He remained to see that the duty had not ceased and that in death there was failure. The great lie peeled back, exposed as the trite maxim it was. Death was an escape. Duty was eternal.

The servitor buried in the doorframe gurgled out a buzz, indicating a presence shortly before the sharp whine of the actuators hauling the thick hatch open cut through his meditative silence.

'I wish to be alone.' He had no taste to speak with Etremedes again, to see the hidden yearning for Qin to set things aright, the hungry wish for one of the Emperor's Angels to simply wave his hand and re-right the universe. He could do neither.

It was only from exposure and experience that he heard the slightest sound of slippered feet on corrugated metal. Iselyth had been shadowing him since they came aboard. Lurking in the shadows as he argued with Etremedes about the fate of the _Argent Lance_ and as he listened to the vox-recordings of Wayfarer Qemu. The first time he had shaken her was when he retired to the suite of rooms afforded to them, wandering off through the conjoined chambers.

There he had cleansed himself, finally putting aside the battered remnants of his wargear, pulling on the strange fitting tunic and trousers provided to him. Idly he wondered if seamstresses had hurriedly stitched together the garment, running his fingers along the embroidered symbol of his Chapter across the breast. Meditation eluded him, as did sleep, and he took to wandering the creaking and wending ways of the _Temptor, _trying to avoid both the crew and the eldar alike. She was irritatingly comfortable aboard an Imperium warship. Perhaps she was all too aware that he would brook no harm against her.

As with several times previous, Iselyth did not answer him and he felt her presence as she came to stand alongside at the crystalflex window. Many times she simply lingered near him as if constantly on the verge of action, yet always without saying a word she would vanish back off to the small quarters she had claimed. Meals, brought by serfs were picked over. Qin ate mechanically, refilling reserves he had dipped low into. Iselyth took what she needed back to her claimed space. What she did there, how she passed the time – he had no idea. He had not bothered to inquire.

Qin cleared his throat and spoke again, never taking his gaze from the dying world below.

'I said, eldar, that I wish to be alone.'

'There is a quaint saying in your Imperium I once heard. 'Wish in one palm and defecate in the other: see which overflows first.'' He was too tired to even stir at the eldar's purposeful needling. The grave of his brothers occupied his sight and thoughts: the frozen smears of debris chilling his soul.

'I have no mood for this sparring. Leave me. I will not ask again.' His voice, unused for many hours, creaked.

'Then I will not have to disappoint you a third time.' A rustle of movement, a shift of air as she turned, resting her back against the window, arms crossed across her chest. From beneath the locks of her hair she looked up, gaze searching. He caught briefly her scent, light, and snorted it out. 'I came to say I am sorry for your loss.'

_Sorry for your loss._

The incongruity of an alien expressing sympathy over the death of a Chapter of Space Marines was entirely too much and he could not prevent a sharp laugh from bubbling up his throat. It seemed no end to the progression of insanity.

'You are sorry? Truly?' He barked another laugh, finding it a minor relief to the ache in his chest.

'Is that so hard to understand? I thought long on what to say. I know loss, _space marine_,' she emphasized the phrase, ironic, 'and I am not unfeeling. After all this – still you think me heartless.'

Qin just laughed again, gesturing out into space with a broad hand. 'Look, for that is all there is. Death and endings. I trusted that my Chapter was eternal. Look at the lie this universe has made of that certainty.' One finger poked hard at the crystalflex. 'Echoes and fragments. The universe is heartless.'

She pushed away, pacing. 'I lost my entire shrine on that world. You do not own monopoly on pain.'

'I am Astartes,' he scoffed, 'we feel no pain.'

'You feel no pain, you know no pleasure, you cannot understand trust. What do you feel, o Astartes, so perfected as you are?' Iselyth fidgeted, head turned away, stroking a hand through her long hair. 'You look through me – avoid me. After-of all that we-why do you need to hate me?'

'Hate you? Why do – why do I hate you?' The words built up in him, a pressure nearly choking. The ache in his chest bloomed into a tumult, sudden unexpected fury rich and intoxicating. It touched the tightness it his chest and found fertile ground, a rich substrate to catalyze. Like lancing a wound the words poured out, broken free from the clot formed from the shock of his loss, the death of his squad, the tension he still felt around the eldar. 'Why should I not hate you? Hate is the currency of life!' Each syllable he bit out, fired from his lips like a bolt from a gun. 'The poor hate the rich, the rich hate the poor, the sick hate the hale and the hale the sick! Those with faith hate the atheist and the unfaithful abhor the devout. The mutant hates the pure and the clean-bodied spurn the twisted. Hate is the grease that spins the wheels of civilization!' Qin turned from the grim vista, aiming an accusing finger at her, lip curled. 'Oh, I know many things, witch. I know the joy of battle shoulder to shoulder with my honored brothers. I know the peace of meditation and the calm of finding my center. I know the fierce pride in my species; I know the pleasure of fulfilling my purpose. But do you know what runs beneath it all?

Do you know what drives it? Hatred! Hatred of all the wretches and horrors this galaxy throws to tear my people down. Hatred of the idiocy that turns neighbor against neighbor, of the cruel gods that laugh and laugh and laugh. Hatred of the alien who thinks only of butchery. Hatred of our own failures. Hatred! So why should I not hate you too? What is so special, so different about _you_, eldar, that should cause me to put aside ten thousand years?' He swore in his native tongue, the one only spoken amongst brothers, the tongue of the Jade Host. Iselyth wavered, mouth half-open, surprise writ across her features.

Qin could not stop himself, could not rein in once he began.

'And why should you not hate me? Were your kind not the masters of the galaxy once? Do you not now live endangered, driven out from your realms-'

'Do not.' She whispered the words, but he heard them all the same.

'hunted and lingering on but the edge of survival? Do you not hate mankind, who has usurped _your _galaxy? I have heard that is what some of your kind still call it, as if you simply suffer our presence for now, as if your species was not already fading. And do you not hate? Do you not hate those responsible, do you-'

'_Do. Not._' The surprise had shifted, the glimmers of moisture in almond eyes gone, replaced by a slow, mounting shadow of threat, a darkening of electric green irises, teeth clenching hard enough to bunch muscles in her jaw and temple. Tendons stuck out at her neck and shoulder.

'_Do you not hate? _All your brothers and sisters on the world below, cut down like animals, and _do you not hate?'_

Momentarily at a loss, he stopped, surprised to find himself panting, sucking in air and snorting it out like a dog, trembling along every limb. Iselyth's fists were clenched, nails digging into her own palms. Her outfit, the bizzare mix of the remnants of her undersuit and a clean cloth tabard, a borrowed item from the ship, only highlighted how alien and out of place she was here, surrounded by the gothic fixings and hard-angled Martian metalwork. In that moment, that realization, he hated her existence here and forced himself to look away, uneasy at the sharpness of it.

'This…this is not you.' Her voice was full of emotion, a potent mixture he could not name, trembling with a self-control that surprised him. A sharp contrast to his own impassioned rant. He laughed in her face.

'You think you know me?' For a time he and the eldar glared at one another, separated by but a short stretch of air and an immeasurable gulf of species and a lifetime of war. Her throat worked a few times, once or twice seeming near to speaking before she bit back whatever retort she had shaped.

Finally he could take it no more, the silence stretching longer. His peace here was utterly ruined and he knew he would never return to this vestibule again, charged as it was now with memory. Qin turned away, slapping the controls for the hatch which whined open with the same bored gurgled alert from the cogitator.

'Is that what you do? Run away?'

He paused, half-in, half-out. Two armsmen, Iselyth's permanent shadows, eyed him uneasily from their posts just outside. He wondered how much they had overheard. He found he did not care.

'Too difficult, mon'keigh? Too hard to face me? Face yourself? So you just run away?'

He teetered. He should leave. Ignore the alien until her people retrieved her, as was his promise. He had sworn to her and so would not renege on his promise, but he did not have to suffer her.

But he could not.

'Go on then. Run away. I'm waiting.'

Qin turned on his heel, letting the hatch hiss closed behind him, closing off the room, hemming them in.

'No?' Iselyth sniffed, pointedly turning her back on him, looking out into space.

And he spoke without thinking, biting out words that he knew he could never take back.

'I do not hate you,' he muttered: the fire, the passion from moments before gone and deflated, ash filling his mouth. He felt drained, frayed, pulled at both ends and strangely frangible in the center. 'I do not hate you.' He sighed; sure that she had heard him. The fervor was gone.

'Do you hear me? I do not hate you. I want to. I should. I fight against it. But I do not.'

Before the broad pane of crystalflex, illuminated by the harsh light of the local star, Iselyth was a silhouette. Long legs, slender waist, arms hugged tight about her middle, the tumble and cascade of soft hair.

'This is not simple for me either.' Her voice was a whisper, a fragment of sound. 'You are not just a human. You are a _space marine_. How many of my people have your kind slaughtered? How many?'

In truth, he had never slain any of her species. The eldar in this sector were wary, hewing close to home and their craftworld. It lurked beyond the reaches of Imperial space, enjoying an uneasy and unspoken truce in the face of the constant greenskin eruptions from the barren sectors spinward. The opening of the Great Rift had only made them more cautious and swamped the Imperium with a host of other, far more pressing concerns. But he knew of other wars and other Chapters, of massive conflicts consuming entire worlds where eldar and man clashed.

And for each eldar slain, he was sure; a commensurate tally of humanity had been reaped.

There was no pity, only recognition. Iselyth slowly slumped down, until she was leaning against the window, her forehead pressed to the crystalflex, hugging her midsection. His hand twitched, of its own accord, rising toward her before he frowned and pulled back.

'Why do you bother, Iselyth? Four times now, you have found me. What is it you want from me? To simply say you are sorry?'

'You were…there…for me, Qin,' she murmured. 'Before. I had hoped – I wanted to return the favor. To be here for you.' She bounced her head off the smooth glass once and then turned, the sorrow etched across her thin face catching at his hearts. Like recognized like. The effect the alien had on him still unnerved him – anger in one second, regret in the next. It felt like weakness, if felt like he was losing his mind.

'You waste your pity.' She shook her head, wetness on her cheeks.

'No, I give my sympathy freely. It is never a waste.' The concept was foreign to him – he knew lament and loss, he ate and breathed grief, he knew recognition of a life well served and a duty ended by the fragility of mortality, but sympathy? A weakness for mortals, for the fragile flesh.

'Then I do not need it.' Iselyth swiped a palm across her cheek, wiping at tears, lowering herself onto a low bench. She leaned forwards, elbows resting on knees to run fingers through her long hair, combing the silk of it between slender digits. She was too slender and tall for the human scaled seat and the sight was incongruous. She did not belong here, Qin thought, the uncomfortable tag-a-long was that he did not either. Not here, in the bowels of the _Temptor_. They were both far from their element, far from home.

'Help me understand.'

'There is nothing to –' She cut him off, chopping a hand through the air, meeting brown eyes with her own vivid green.

'Qin, we had a peace. The time on the planet – it was amicable, was it not? We found a way past your mask.' She turned her palm up, the light catching on the raised white lines there. The aquila. 'Now it is…it is like it was all those weeks ago. When first we met. Since we have been aboard you look at me like a stranger.'

He sat on a bench across from her, the cogitator in the door warbling quietly as it reduced power, sensing no further approach.

'It was wrong.'

'Then help me to understand why.' He sighed, casting about for the ineffable. Why she unsettled him so, now. Why being merely near her was a torment. Why her offer of sympathy repulsed him. He barely understood why himself, but to articulate it – and why should he? What did he owe an alien?

'What – if anything – existed between us was false. A sham. The only connection I should ever need is from my brothers. You are – you are an alien, for the love of the Throne.'

'And you are not alien to me? Qin, it is not for us to decide the whims of fate. I lost my Shrine. Six brothers and nine sisters. Even my Exarch. I thought I was alone. Then I found you.' She shrugged. 'And then I was not alone. You are not aeldari – but you were an ally. A comrade. We had no – we _have _no reason for enmity.'

'There was more than enough,' he muttered, but she heard.

'Because of our species? So we should have fought to the death and left our duty undone? Very well, Space Marine, let us dance now and resolve it.' Neither made move. She made a noise that might have been a sob, might have been amusement. 'What point would it have made? I was alone and grieving on a world that wanted me dead. So were you.'

As she spoke, he couldn't help but relive the moments again. The long trail they had cut across the world. The fights, the near-death encounters. The moments of remarkable…heroism, he had to admit, from both of them. When they finally dueled, speaking physically, when he first realized the connection that had formed. The bond. Then – later. Other things. Other nights.

'Stop!' he nearly shouted, slamming his palms flat on his knees. 'Stop! I do not need to be reminded of what we shared! That is not at question, it is – it is –' he struggled for a moment before speaking, speaking without thinking. 'How can I, when I have lost so much? Why do I deserve to live, and to – to not be alone, when all my brothers are gone?'

Finally spoken, the truth of his admission hung in the air between them. Shame filled him, the shame of admitting weakness, of realizing this fundamental flaw. He wanted Iselyth. When she was near him on the _Temptor_, when she had sought him out, lingering for short times before vanishing again, he had felt calmer. The grief that choked him less constricting. He wanted her, because though she was eldar, though she was alien, though she was all he was taught to abhor, she was a connection. She meant he was not alone.

A tear scrolled down her cheek, catching the stark starlight angling in through the crystalflex, glimmering.

'It's guilt, then,' she whispered. His own eyes felt hot, a pressure in his throat.

'Of course it is,' he retorted, 'I am all the remains of the Jade Host. And while I dallied with an eldar my brothers died. All of them.'

'We, you – the fate of your kin was not your doing. The blame cannot be placed on your shoulders, no more than the blame for my shrine can be on mine. The tyranid did this. They took from both of us, and our survival is not our blame.' The eldar nodded to herself, as if understanding. 'You struggle with your mask because you aren't done with your war.'

'I should have been with them,' Qin said bitterly, hammering a fist into one hand. 'I should have been there to die with Master Atobai.' Iselyth said nothing, toying with the hem of her tunic with one hand, the other pressing against the shape of her waystone beneath the cloth. At length she spoke again, and he was surprised.

'Ataenith Farstrider. He was the Exarch of the Shrine of the Shrouded Star. I never knew him before he took up the mantle, but he was a good man. He was an Exarch, yet he never forgot what it was to live. He taught us well and he…he guided us. He had an artist's heart, behind his armor, and we loved him for it. Ataenith found a way to make war honorable and even turn the horrible beautiful, in a way.' Another tear followed the still-wet track, but her voice did not waver. 'I will miss him. I think I always will.' She sniffed, and looked at Qin. 'I have his waystone. So he survives and his memory survives too in me. My shrine is gone, but I am not. So I can remember.'

He looked down, unable to meet her intense gaze. Slowly, he unclenched each fist, taking peculiar interest in watching each finger uncurl, slowly, one at a time.

_'Watch, Qin. Watch! It is the single stroke – here – that changes the parchment. Without the ink, it is merely paper. With it – it is meaning. It is a story.'_

For a moment he saw the ghostly shape of viridian gauntlets about his bare hands, heard the whisper of dense fabric in the wind, smelled lapping powder. Each hand he slowly rotated, placing palms on his knees, feeling the coarse weave of his trousers, the dense muscle beneath. The Jade Host was gone. Everything he knew was in ruins.

_'One stroke. One motion. You must know your intent from the beginning, or it is spoiled. You must begin with alacrity and end with certainty, else there is confusion in between. Again – see? One motion, one purpose, one mind.'_

Astartes could never forget. Every moment of his extended life was buried in the meat of his brain, spooled away in dense tangles of moment and sense-memory by the arcane sciences of his ascension. His first time firing a bolter, the first swing of a chainsword. The memory of his own Investiture of Heaven. It all lurked in his head, forever reminding him of what he had lost.

What he had lived.

_'Take the brush. Take it carefully, held like this. Not too firmly, or it may snap. Too lightly and you might drop it. Then into the ink. Be generous, for you must have enough to see it through. Now is the pause. Now is when you consider. It can be for a moment or for a whole day. You take the time you need.'_

He looked at an eldar, he sat in a cruiser. He wore clothes not his own as he circled a dying world. His mind teemed with faces. With memories.

_'Pause, Qin. Feel the moment. Feel the brush. Find your centre. Fill it entirely. And then –'_

'Tsetyin. Khan. He served for four centuries. He was…my older brother. The elder brother to all of us. When he slew, he was laughing…'

Iselyth, the smallest smile quirking the corners of her mouth, relaxed and listened.

* * *

The cycles of the ship moved about them as they shared that quiet, hidden chamber. He spoke of things he had not thought of in years. Decades, even. Sometimes he even forgot the nature of his companion as he spoke stories and tales of battle and heroism, of grim duty and loss. But then she would shift, or speak, or he would catch her scent, the shape of her face, and the familiar, if mild, shock would jolt through him. The part of him that shouted _xeno! _The part that clenched its teeth and spat.

But she spoke too, and she told of wild things, of fantastical places he was sure no human had ever heard. Of labyrinthine spaces, of ork gargants tackled by reptilian juggernauts crowded with howling aeldari. Once or twice she drew reluctant amusement, remarking drily on some quirk of the greenskin they both knew all too well.

When finally the pauses lengthened, when a dull klaxon spoke through the sealed hatch, speaking of a full day-and-night cycle's passage, they finally made their parting. Iselyth intimated she needed nourishment and Qin needed to walk. He needed motion and exercise, something to center himself after sinking so far into recollection.

It was a walk that became a run, a steady jog through the long axial corridors of the _Temptor_, his borrowed clothes snapping about him as he kept a steady pace. Ratings and crewmen were rare and all quickly stepped from his way. Many watched his passage with open mouths, making the sign of the aquila. On his second lap of the four kilometer cruiser, Qin dared poke at the open wound that was his Chapter. This time, the ache was not as crippling.

* * *

Steam surrounded him. The ablutorium attached to the Captain's private bedchamber was easily as large his cell and arming bay combined on the _Unbridled_. It felt unseemly that so much space should be taken up simply for luxury, but Qin chose not to question too deeply the ways of the Imperial Navy or the designs of the Mechanicus. Instead he stood beneath a spray of searing hot water, pelting him from three directions from fonts shaped like snarling lion's heads. Hot enough to scald a mortal, it was merely invigorating and left a pleasant tingling across his body. Interface ports shone, shining and clean, across his limbs and pockmarked his chest. None seemed damaged from his less-than-careful removal of his wargear, piece by piece, back on Incandry's Rest. The bundles of fibres and cables had all retracted within in good order. A thumb brushed along the angry, ferociously red patch at his breast, edged still with harsh yellow and blue bruising. The wound was finally shut, though he could still feel the tenderness of soft tissues mending within.

The human medicae that Etremedes had offered professed no knowledge of transhuman physiology, apologizing profusely even while Qin assured him there was no offence taken. There had been stimulants, drugs, a handful of injections. It may have helped, it may not have. A proper apothecary could tell him if his ribcage had set properly and begun to regrow. When he ran, his breath came harder than in the past, but it was easing. His second heart ached after long exertion, but it did not fail him. He was not dead.

It had to be enough.

He faced into the spray again, shutting his eyes and breathing slowly, letting the pounding water scour his face, soaking into his hair. He tasted stale chemicals, the bite of water recycled too many times. His beard was mostly gone, finally banished by stroke of razor. All that remained was a brush above his lip and at his chin, leaving cheeks bare and smooth. The wild tangle that had grown was gone and he felt more like a proper son of the Host.

The tiles, many chipped and worn, dripped condensation in the moist heat. Beads gathered and ran down, meeting the rising clouds of steam. Such a frivolous waste of precious shipboard water. Qin switched off the faucets, the tripartite deluge immediately ceasing, leaving him to lower himself, cross-legged, in the humidity of a false sauna. Legs folded properly, he laid palms on his knees and shut his eyes. Long breaths pulled in the warm air, filling slowly both massive lungs until he forced his tertiary to engage. In and in, until his entire chest felt filled to bursting, hollow and broad, before slowly he exhaled over the span of a full three minutes.

In again.

Out again.

Qin let the warmth of the air, the heavy humidity of it saturate him, fill him, blurring the boundaries between his body and the wafting steam. Eyes shut, focused on his breathing, he attempted to that which his kind was not designed to do: still his thoughts. The mnemonics learned in long sessions washed through his mind, counting every second of each breath, focusing on the beading condensation that dripped and rolled down his broad back, on the tickle of moisture dripping free of his hair, of skin beneath his palms.

Flashes of green forest and windswept, cold, harsh steppes eased in.

He imagined the sound of the wind that rippled the stiff grasses, that kicked up grit and dust in shortlived storms across the steppe. He smelled the spice of the evergreens, the heady aroma of sap burning in crackling bonfires.

Home.

* * *

As the _Temptor _swept out of the system, Qin hunted a whisper.

It roused him from his routine maintenance of his wargear. Bolter disassembled, oiled, brushed, every part burnished to a mirrored sheen. Six times he had done it since coming aboard, each time entirely unnecessary. But idleness drove him in the days that slipped by as the killing of Incandry's Rest finished and the small flotilla slipped anchor. It was a slow realization as he worked, until suddenly he realized, with a start, he had been hearing the lilting tones for some time now. So slowly had the melody built that it slipped into his thoughts without a trace.

He wandered the empty chambers for minutes, chasing down the ethereal sound at the very edge of his hearing, pausing now and then to cock his head, listening hard, post-human senses straining to pin it down. The suite of rooms Etremedes held as his own were many – arranged like a nautilus shell about a single, large central living space filled with couches and lounges fit for fifty people. Smaller rooms for guests and storage circled the oblong chamber, with small corridors running behind to link up with servant quarters. Despite the luxury implied by such a large suite, it was not spared the same lurking decay as the rest of the _Temptor._ Qin smelled recently applied paint, over the round smell of mildew and rust. Frescoes were worn and faded. Furniture threadbare. All chambers were empty now, vacated for the strange Space Marine and his aeldari guest, but more than a few showed no sign of use or inhabitance for a long, long time.

The tune came and went, a murmur that lingered along the walls, that lurked between chambers and reached into his depths of his chest. At times it vanished completely, leaving him stock still in the middle of antechambers or map-rooms filled with flickering hololiths and bundles of warp-charts. Then he would catch a snippet, a snatch of the haunting melody and he would be off again, pressing ear to the bulkhead here, listening to the music in the bones of the ship there.

Deeper in the suite he followed it until he reached the Captain's own bedchamber, the one he had loaned to Qin. Frowning, he pushed through the ancient wooden door left ajar, inlaid with worn carvings of battleships, instinct and conditioning spiking his focus. The sound of pounding water met him, muffled, filtered through from the adjoined ablutorium. Here he could hear the singing clearly – an alien, wandering melody, muffled words in a tongue he did not know.

'Iselyth,' he muttered. It was a purely alien sound, a procession of tone and harmony that no human could have dreamt of. Though the flowing words held no meaning to him, there was emotion in the music. A passion, a depth of feeling that held him still, listening. He shut his eyes, drinking in the song, both amazed and perplexed by the emotions it drew up from him. There was loss, longing, a potent cocktail and swirl that made him want to laugh and weep in equal measure. He found himself grinning at an unexpected memory of casual camaraderie and gasping in surprise as the visceral shock of a brother's last words cut short that struck him across the decades, as potent as if the memory was but seconds old.

A lull in her song returned him to his senses. Qin jolted as if electrified, shaking his head like a dog, clumsily fumbling for the door. Witchery, he muttered.

* * *

Days later Etremedes informed him of a new contact, far from the Mandeville, approaching from the inner system. It was a phantom, a ghost on the sensorium, vanishing for hours before appearing again millions of kilometers closer. 'Aeldari,' Yovu spat, glowering not quite at Qin, but near enough. Etremedes nodded, saying it approximately matched an eldar cruiser in tonnage and auspex signature. It approached the ragged Imperial fleet obliquely, slowly gaining but quite clearly not attempting to remain truly hidden. With the Mandeville point still days away, the alien ship, at projected speeds, would intercept only hours before a potential jump. With the warp still wild and turbulent and the spectre of the Great Rift always looming, it was hoped the slow exit from the system would allow for some of the worst squalls to calm, though the Navigators claimed it was unlikely. Etremedes laid out the options: the aeldari ship was no match for the handful of warships in the flotilla, but they could accelerate and aim to make the jump into the immaterium before it could reach them. Or, he offered, pointedly not looking at his second in command, we could attempt communications.

Yovu turned away, face screwed up in distaste as Qin mulled it over.

A squad of eldar appear on Incandry's Rest for a clandestine mission. Then an aeldari craft appears. They were clearly linked – either the eldar, in some way, knew of Iselyth's survival, or they were here to check on their people. They would be disappointed in the case of the latter, he mused.

'Contact them,' Qin said, 'by machine call. Offer them cautious greetings and inform them we have recovered one of their own from the world of Incandry's Rest. Invite them to parlay.' Etremedes tapped his fingers against his throne, slowly bobbing his head.

'Yes,' he agreed, 'the eldar in this sector are not known to be hostile. And we would be well to be rid of our 'passenger' before translation.'

As the Captain made preparations to reach out to the distant xeno craft, Qin retired to his suite, seeking out Iselyth. He found her in the primary chamber, sitting crosslegged on a thick crimson rug, emblazoned with a golden aquila. He snorted at the scene – she had a unique talent for maximizing her absurdity. The eldar held both arms out before her, palms up at full extension, taking long and deep breaths, eyes closed. A meditation of some sort, one he well recognized.

He cleared his throat.

'I heard you enter, Qin.'

'There is an aeldari craft in system. It appears to be shadowing us.' He paced to one of the long lounges, lowering himself onto the sumptuous cushions, grimacing as he sank nearly a foot into the material. Uncomfortably he adjusted himself, trying not to vanish into the furniture. Iselyth slowly drew in both arms, crossing them across her chest, fingers spread athwart the opposite shoulders. Idly he watched her, tracing the curve of her back as she sat upright and erect, eyeing the complex fold of her long legs.

'Mm. As I hoped. They are late, but later is preferable to not at all, yes?' She raised both arms slowly, reaching for the ceiling as she threw her head back. Her borrowed tunic pulled against her chest, outlining the swell of her breasts as she stretched.

'Captain Etremedes is attempting to make contact. If they do not respond, perhaps if you added your voice…'

'I am sure they will know I am here.' She slowly started leaning forward, arms still outstretched above her head, levering her upper body down toward her lap. 'If it is _Yanna'shilitha_, which it should be, there will be a Warlock with them. He will be able to sense me.' She lay flush, folded in two, fingers brushing the carpet far in front of her for a moment before smoothly rising again. Qin shifted.

Iselyth came to her feet in a liquid, quick motion and cocked her head, gaze flicking across him.

'But I will speak to them, if you wish. I am sure there will be much to discuss. Tell me,' she sank into a lounge across from him, pulling up her long legs to tuck beneath her as she propped herself up on one elbow. 'am I truly free to go?' He frowned.

'Of course.' The aeldari glanced away, idly toying with the tassels on a pillow with two fingers.

'You gave me your word. I know. But you do not command this ship, Qin.' She flicked at the tassel, then ran fingers through her hair, gathering it and tossing it back over one shoulder. 'The woman – the second on this vessel. I have no great gift, but I could feel her hate.'

'Mistress Yovu does not hold command.'

'No-o-o,' she said, drawing out the word, 'but she is of a pattern. You would honor your word. I know. If it were up to you, then I would be sent back to my people this instant. I simply –' She glanced at the broad doors to the suite, beyond which four armsmen stood guard, ostensibly to keep curious and insubordinate crew away. But also just as clearly her shadows who followed her everywhere she went.

'Captain Etremedes is known to my Chapter. He understands. You will be free to go, when the time comes.' Iselyth shifted, tucking deeper into the deep lounge.

'It is good to have someone I can trust,' she said. They exchanged no more words, but Qin remained for many minutes, quite unsure how to unpick the weight of that.

* * *

'This is too far,' Yovu hissed. 'Captain-!' Etremedes stood, arms folded across his barrel chest, frown carving deep valleys in his forehead as he glanced between his second and the looming Astartes.

'The aeldari wish to send a single shuttle to retrieve this…Iselyth.'

'And the issue with that, Captain, is?'

'They would require access to this vessel. To dock, Lord Astartes.'

'We would be allowing a xeno craft into the very belly of this warship. Who knows what they might have secreted aboard! What manner of devices-'

'Mistress Yovu, hold your tongue.' Qin barked, rounding on her. 'Do not think me soft. To trust the alien is to invite disaster, and the xeno must always be distrusted. But the aeldari are not _stupid_. They would sacrifice a warship to achieve what, Mistress? The destruction of a single cruiser? They gain nothing.'

'They are aliens, they do not think as we do!'

''To underestimate the enemy is to invite defeat,'' he quoted at her. 'The Great Rift has weakened this sector. As has,' he paused, swallowing, to choke out the rest. 'as has rumored loss of the Jade Host. Yet the Imperium holds strong. Tales of the Indominus Crusade still reach us, do they not?' There was silence, and he repeated himself.

'Do they not?'

'They do, Lord,' Etremedes affirmed. 'It has been many months since clear astropathic hymns, but fragments still suggest the Lord Commander Guilliman continues his campaign-'

'This craftworld would invite ruin to achieve nothing but spite. Caution is admirable, Mistress Yovu, but I have given my word.'

'Your word, Lord Astartes, should not threaten the safety of this ship!'

'My word,' he advanced on her, and he could see the moment when her anger fled, when the reality of a transhuman focusing his full attention on her dawned. Her face ran pale and she took a quick step back. 'My word is the word of the Jade Host. And we have never broken an oath.'

Etremedes intervened.

'I will allow it, Shy. We will be on high alert and I am sure Lord Qin will be present to ensure the smooth transfer of our 'guest'.' Yovu nodded and Qin stepped away, letting her breathe, offering his hand to the Captain.

'My thanks, Captain Etremedes.' The human's hand, large for a mortal, still was as a child's in his, but Etremedes beamed at the recognition, face alight with pleasure.

'I am your humble servant, Lord. The tales my father could tell – I am pleased to do this much, at least. Honor is all.'

'Honor is all,' Qin repeated.

* * *

He lay on the floor. The first evening he chose to retire he spent some time staring at the vast expanse of the bed. Etremedes enjoyed a palatial expanse for his rest: Qin suspected even his own transhuman frame would fit quite comfortably on the enormous mattress. Like the rest of the sumptuous but aging suite, it seemed only the best was reserved for the Captain of the _Temptor_. If this were a Captain's quarters, he mused, an Admiral's must consist of half the ship.

In the end he opted not to indulge. He merely folded a thick carpet in two, recreating the woven mats common in the Host.

Rest usually came easily to him. His brain would cycle down, falling into a full slumber rather than the stopgap of the catalepsean twilight. Few dreams ever bothered him and never did restlessness plague him. Yet tonight he lay staring up at the ceiling, picking out the frescoes of nebulae and starforts that covered it from wall to wall, bleached with age. He traced the lines of a _Lunar _class cruiser, picked out the small shape of a distant _Retribution-_class. The starlight that diffused into the room from the circular portal in the apex of the ceiling was enough for him to pick out even the smallest details above.

The morrow would see Iselyth off. The eldar would be gone. Finally. His erstwhile companion and he would finally part ways – her to return to her own kind, and he to…whatever awaited him. It was good. Proper. But time and again as he attempted to clear his mind, to fall into slumber, she edged into his thoughts. In a way, they had become accustomed to each other. The eldar became a fixture. An irritating, confusing, and sometimes even welcome fixture. In a way, with her departure, he would finally be truly – alone. Qin sighed, rolling onto his side.

Alone. He _was_ alone. An eldar is no companion. But he grimaced at the lie as soon as he thought it. How many times, he mused, can I tell myself this as if it could conjure a truth? Time and again he ignored her, told himself the eldar was an alien, an inhuman creature, a convenience. A means to an end.

And time and again he was wrong.

Wrong.

Qin was not accustomed to wrong.

Truth – that is what mattered. _Truth_. Find the truth in all things, Tsetyin taught. Find the truth, and nothing can stand in your way. With the truth as your ally, with right on your side, the Emperor stands with you. So he could not lie. Not to himself.

Iselyth.

Eldar.

Alien.

Ally.

_Friend_.

Something…else.

He did not know how to quantify it. He had not the words. A relationship wholly unlike any other in his long life and likely unlike any his kind had ever known. But there: undeniable.

So he lie on his folded rug, he stared at the ceiling and he thought of her. She ran through his thoughts, lithe and agile, lissome and tantalizing, hair whipping in the wind, the scent of her skin, of her sweat, the taste of her lips like a ghost on his.

And when the thoughts became too much, when he was driven finally to distraction, when he accepted, eventually, that there would be no sleep, no rest: he rose. Qin strode to the door, wrenching it open, and there was Iselyth. Wavering, hand outstretched for the now-absent handle. She wore only the borrowed tunic, one sleeve fallen from a pale shoulder. Eyes darkened by shadow met his from underneath waves of obsidian hair. He saw her. Heard the stuttered exhale of her breath. Smelled the scent of her hair.

She swayed.

His mouth was dry, tongue oddly glued still.

Her lips parted, slow, soft, and his hearts jolted.

Then she was in his arms as he pulled her to him, lifted her into the air while her slender arms encircled his neck, pulling him close, her mouth finding his; hungry, wanton, warm and wet. He licked into the wet opening offered, tasting her, hungry and needy.

She locked ankles about his waist, anchoring herself to his frame and his pulse quickened at the feel of her body against him. Svelte. Female. Soft.

_Iselyth_.

Vague thoughts of propriety knocked in his brain and he stepped back, catching the edge of the thick oaken door with a foot and slinging it shut with a low boom. Through the thin fabric of her tunic he felt her nipples, hard, dragging against his bare chest as they kissed. Beneath his trousers he felt his cock stir, awakening to the potent cocktail running through his veins.

They broke apart, noses touching. She blinked a few times, lazy, eyelashes tickling cheeks.

'I do not wish to be alone,' he murmured.

'Nor I,' she whispered, and leaned in to press a chaste kiss to his lips. Pulling back, she glanced around the chamber.

'Much larger than mine,' she remarked, and eyed the broad bed. 'And I appreciate the décor.' He craned his neck, following her gaze and scoffed.

'It is excessive,' he said, jerking his head toward the rug he had appropriated. 'A space marine does not need such luxury.'

Iselyth smirked, cocking an eyebrow as she looked down at him, held up in his arms.

'You will make an exception.' He mulled over it, and inclined his head.

'Just this once.'

Their mouths met once more, lips and tongues clashing as he savored the exotic taste of her, carrying her to the bed. For a moment he paused at the foot of it, considering how to proceed – carrying Iselyth, though enjoyable, left him limited options. And she seemed disinclined to intervene.

So he threw her.

Gently.

She laughed as she flopped onto the thick coverlet, bouncing, tunic riding high on her thighs, enticing him with hints of the woman beneath. She kicked off, squirming up toward the morass of pillows at the head on elbows and rear as he pursued, climbing up after her. If the mattress groaned a little under his weight, he did not notice.

Iselyth draped herself across the massive satin pillows, legs crossed at the ankle, arms thrown wide to stroke palms across the sleek fabrics.

'Qin,' she said, and her tone made him pause, kneeling by her feet. Suddenly gone was the laughing, carefree eldar, replaced by a serious intensity. 'If this – if we are to never see one another again, then I…' she trailed off, glancing away, a sudden flush spreading across her cheeks. He knew the words she did not say, for they were his own.

'You would have a memory to keep.' Green eyes snapped back to brown and she nodded.

'As would I. Iselyth – I do not understand you. I do not even understand myself, in this moment. But…I will remember advice long ago given. 'In the moment you live, for in the next you may die. So laugh, when you are killing, grin at your foe, and keep your heart as light as the hawk.'' He ran the words through his mind again, and could not suppress a wry grin. 'Though perhaps the wording is not as appropriate, the meaning-'

'Is well received.' Iselyth took a deep breath, closing her eyes and mouthing something, before a slow smile spread across her lips, lighting her eyes, and she looked at him from beneath hooded lids. 'Come on then, space marine.'

He did not take orders from an alien.

Her demand merely coincided with his own intention.

Qin surrendered and let instinct guide him. Never had it led him astray before. He accepted that in this moment, in this action, he was, in a way, letting go. Letting go of confusion and uncertainty, letting go of excuses. When he knelt over her, the eldar arching up to meet him, he embraced the moment. Thought no farther ahead, shut out the quibbling thoughts. When he touched her, sliding her tunic up, revealing her body beneath, he accepted the way feel of her set him alight.

When she hooked thumbs into the waistband of his trousers, looking up at him as she bit her lip, he questioned not what he saw in her. Excitement. Amusement. Warmth, even. In her eyes, her face. Just that – eyes, face. Not alien. Not human. Just her.

When she helped him shuck off his trousers, leaving both of them nude, he twitched, trembled, feeling peculiarly raw, strangely naked, oddly on edge. When she took him in hand and he hissed, inhaling sharply at the feel of slender fingers wrapped about his length he kissed her, as hard and as desperate as he could, buying surety from her passionate response.

When they switched places at her murmured request, letting Iselyth straddle him, easing down onto his length he let his head fall back into the pillows, savoring the feeling of her hungry body devouring him, her whispered demand still ringing in his ears.

'_I want you inside of me_.'

When she stopped, sunk to the hilt, he let her lead. He drank her in, the sight of her, the feel of her, from sex-mussed hair to kiss-swollen lips to breasts peaked by straining nipples. Sparkling eyes and flash of teeth in shy smile. He melted in her, a bath of promethium, lapping at his ankles, teasing him to dive deeper. So he did. He did.

He built a symphony of her sound in his mind, in his memory, preserving every hitch of her breath, every squeak and sigh as she sank down on him, every moaned nothing and gasped syllable. The meaning of words fell away though distantly he knew that they spoke, that she guided him, here and then, hinting at some angle that would let him plunge deeper, that would reward them both. It was noise, just noise, meaningless and empty as they communicated deeper, in thrust and roll of hips, in a merging of flesh that blurred lines between he and she. In the depths of her body, in the palms of her hands, he let himself wander: scorched, raw.

She measured him and savoured him, drawing long and languid strokes, as if committing to memory every inch of him within her. Every roll of her hips as she rose was a mournful farewell, every plunge back down a fulsome hail. He burned her face into his memory – brows furrowed in fierce focus, eyes squeezed shut, teeth digging into lower lip as she tweaked and squeezed at her breasts, rocking, riding, rampant.

He let ideas filter in, concepts he never considered. When she tensed over him, tendons standing hard at neck and groin, hips jerky, hands fisting and trembling at his chest he tasted them, the ideas, the concepts, he rolled them around in his head and settled them around her like a shroud, trying the fit, seeing the coverage. He tucked in the edges, sutured over the gaps in his experience.

Qin found it good, gathering her into his arms to roll onto his side, tugging her back to his chest, engulfing her, surrounding her, filling her as gently he thrust, savoring each clinging inch of her, the swell of her rear against him, the slenderness of her body against the wall of his chest, the tangle of sweaty hair that he buried his face in.

'_Beautiful_,' he whispered, sharing his revelation, pressing lips to the sharp angle of her ear.

Her hand scrabbled at his own, weaving their fingers together, Iselyth clinging to him as a lifeline as he brought her to new heights, chasing his own. Each slick kiss of friction tugged his hearts from his chest, tore air from his lungs, sanity from his mind, tension from his balls. Her moans sung high counterpart to the basso of his grunts and murmuring as he consumed she consumed him. What he said he did not know, what he whispered and breathed into her ears each time he sunk into her fled with each searing stroke. Never had he wanted something as much as he did her. Never had he felt so whole. They blended, together, bodies blurred into one, with each slow caress as Qin chased not his end but the richness, the fullness of being with her. In her. Around her.

It should have frightened him. It did frighten him. He felt no fear.

He felt Iselyth.

He drowned in her, for a time, and all thought was gone.

They lay gasping, panting, molten and cooling, two puddles of insoluble metal just now accreting. He gathered Iselyth to him, the trembling, shaking bundle of her, kissing her, smoothing hands down her slick stomach and soft breasts, burying his face in her sweaty mane. It felt right, all of it: true and unshrouded, the feel of her in his arms. His heart ached to leave her, softening, but as he tried to withdraw she reached back, grabbing at his hips, sinking fingernails into his skin.

'No,' she groaned, needy, 'no, just – just a moment more-'

He obliged, holding her close, arms wrapped around her, soft breast cupped in one hand, treasuring the feeling of engulfing the slender eldar entirely. Their bodies entwined, enfolded, he basked in the little aftershocks, her soft tunnel clenching gently around his oversensitive organ. He felt raw, sandblasted, exhausted but enervated. After he finally withdrew, soft, aching at the departure from her heat, still scarcely could he tell where one body ended the other began, even separate now as they were. She was warm and soft and damp, so wonderfully female and small in his arms.

Qin started when she rolled over, looking up at him with kiss-reddened lips and sparkling eyes. Tears tracked down her cheeks and he kissed them away, tasting salt and her skin.

'Tears,' she whispered, sharing a secret, 'can mean it was good.' He tasted them on her lips as he kissed her. 'Thank you,' she murmured when they separated.

'What for?' he whispered back, keeping his voice low, or as low as his deep timbre could reach. The moment seemed fragile, like spun sugar, and he feared to shatter it.

'For sharing this with me,' she nuzzled closer, settling under his chin. Qin stroked her hair, from root to tip, curious at the sweat-dampened yet silken texture of it, so different from his own. 'For letting me see this side of you.'

This side of him. This side. The side that lay with xenos, the side that sought out the company of an eldar over his own species.

'It is one I did not know I had,' he replied honestly. Her breath gusted across his pectorals as she spoke, soft and ticklish against his chest hair.

'I know. That is why I will treasure it. This. Us.'

He searched her words, her tone, the instinctual distrust of aliens still biting at the back of his brain. But he could find nothing but sincerity. Perhaps it was what he wanted to hear. Perhaps it was only what he wanted to find. Perhaps.

Perhaps.

Or perhaps he had been wrong.

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and she giggled, the musical tones so relaxed and open. That he envied. How she could trust him so completely. How easily she could reach out.

'As will I,' Qin swore, an oath unspoken to never forget the lessons learnt. 'As will I.'

Iselyth snuggled against him, adjusting, as if trying to meld into him. He welcomed it, casting about for the coverlet tossed aside in their joining, hauling the soft, quilted blanket across them both. For a time they simply enjoyed each other, basking in the warmth of the other's body, the feel of skin-on-skin. The intimacy of their nakedness, the vulnerability of the moment.

'What will you do?'

Qin had begun drifting off, sectors of his brain beginning to cycle down, though always he remained aware, like slumbering with one eye open. Iselyth's quiet question roused him back up to full wakefulness and he glanced at the chrono glaring harsh red runes into the half-light. Half an hour had passed since he started dozing.

'Your meaning?'

'If – if you are the last of your brotherhood, what will you do next, Qin?' As usual, she had the uncanny ability to prod at his deepest concerns. It was nothing he had not considered before, in the days since the revelation. What was there for him? A lone Astartes, bereft of his Chapter, what purpose could he serve? There had been options: he could act as an advisor, he considered, for the local battlefleet. Perhaps even command a ship entirely. He was no master of void warfare, but he was Astartes, and he was of the Jade Host. Adaptation was possible.

Or he could seek out another Chapter. There were other scions of the Great Khan amongst the stars. When he had first considered it, Qin nearly rejected it out of hand. To put aside the colors of the Host, to swear allegiance to another order – it felt like losing his Chapter all over again. It felt like a betrayal.

The truth was the future was shrouded. What lie ahead was impossible to predict.

'I do not know,' he said, considering. 'This is…unheard of.'

'You do not have options?'

'I am Astartes, Iselyth. I serve until my death. That used to be enough.' The eldar shifted, pressing a palm against his chest, over his heart.

'You cannot…start anew?'

'Start anew?'

'Rebuild your Chapter, I mean. If you still survive, then can you not start anew?' He chuckled, her naiveté oddly touching.

'Iselyth, a Chapter of the Astartes does not simply 'start anew'. There are…complications…that are far beyond my capability to solve.' She hummed against him, thinking.

'I can seek out another Shrine,' her fingers wound into the hair on his chest, idly fiddling with his curls. 'can you not do the same? Find another Chapter?' Qin smiled as she voiced his own fears once more.

'It is not the same. I was born into my Chapter, or near enough. It has been my entire life. All that I am. To put that aside and swear allegiance to another…'

'I understand,' Iselyth said, and sniffed. 'I did not have the same bond with the brothers and sisters of my Shrine, but still, to think of moving on so blithely-'

'It is like dishonor. To their memories and to your oaths.'

'Yes. Yes! I am sorry. I should not have suggested-'

'No,' Qin cut her off, shaking his head. 'No, I have thought of the same. I do not know what I will do.'

She craned her neck, looking up at him, before reaching up to entwine her hand in his hair and pull him down to her lips. They kissed, soft and calm, none of the roiling passion of before. A reaffirmation, of sorts. That she was there. That he was here.

'You will find a new Path. So much of you is still a mystery to me, Qin, but I will risk saying that I think I know the sort of man you are. You will make the right choice.' Finding himself suddenly uncomfortable, he cleared his throat.

'And you? Will you find another Shrine?' He knew, at least in sketches, of the structure of the aeldari warriors. Most he had learned from Iselyth, in brief, fragmentary conversations on Incandry's Rest, as they awaited rescue. Her kind did not devote themselves to war as Astartes or even career Guardsmen did, but instead seemed to have a sort of tour of duty, sworn to these 'Aspect Shrines' or something called a 'Guardian'. He did not quite understand it, but he assumed a Shrine was analogous to a Killteam or similar.

'I do not know either,' she confided, then he heard the smile in her voice. 'We are a pair, are we not? So glum. I would rather not think of such things, not now. Kiss me again, Space Marine, and let us just enjoy the moment instead.'

He could not argue with that.

* * *

Iselyth stepped from the cleansing chamber. It was the Iselyth he knew best, wrapped in silken undersuit, clad in her breastplate and remaining gauntlet. Her hair, damp, tied back in a tail, fell behind her. There was a glow about her, a softness in her expression that he had not yet seen. Openly he admired her, dragging his gaze from shapely legs up her hip to the arc of her waist to her face.

'The shuttle is docking soon,' she said, tapping at her forehead. 'I can hear them.' Qin holstered his plasma pistol, running his palm over the pommel of the chainsword at his waist. Restored after meticulous effort from spare parts from the _Temptor_'s armorium, he was glad to have it at hand again. Not his _qua din_, the long polearm presumably lost with _Unbridled_, but a comforting weight at his hip. 'I will go to the hangar, and be ready.'

'I will follow shortly,' Qin knelt, adjusting the fit of his boots, irked that he did not have his full battleplate. He felt naked without it, the borrowed carapace plate fit for an ogryn feeling shabby and uncomfortable. At least it was something – he expected no difficulty from the aeldari emmisaries, but it would be improper to not take all possible precautions. Etremedes already had several squads of armsmen standing by, both within the hangar and without. The guns of the _Temptor_ and the other ships of the squadron were unmasked, trained on the distance alien craft, servitor-slaved targeting arrays unerringly locked. She idled for a moment by the door, watching him as he tightened leather straps.

'Iselyth,' he called, and she paused, reaching for the door. 'Before, it was lust. As you said. Then it was…curiosity. But last night –'

She hauled open the door, walking out without a backward glance. Her parting words reached him.

'It was goodbye.'

* * *

Iselyth, at his side, stiffened in evident surprise.

Three aeldari strode down the long, thin ramp extruded from the side of the slender shuttle. Long, fan-like wings folded up like accordions to either side, odd crystals and gemstones glimmering along the length of the craft. Unmistakably alien. Two of the aeldari were helmed, wearing identical armor that bore a strong resemblance to Iselyth's. The third bore a broad pennant rising from over one shoulder, a tall-crested helm tucked under one arm. Rich robes draped the alien's slender body, covered in runes and drapes of charms on chains. Clearly this one was the most important – if Qin thought Iselyth bore an unconscious air of superiority, this eldar male practically exuded arrogance with every soundless step.

'Autarch…?' Iselyth whispered the word, low enough only Qin could hear. It meant nothing to him, but he held his tongue.

The alien trio strode smartly forward, seemingly unfazed by the four squads of armsmen at tense attention that flanked them. Menbrecht was present, overseeing one squad, while Etremedes stood to Qin's left. Yovu was conspicuously absent. He noted with some degree of guilt the still-fading bruises on the Major's neck.

The eldar, the one Iselyth called 'Autarch', stopped two meters away from the assembly and sharply inclined his head.

'I am Autarch Thenil. You have my gratitude and sincerest thanks for allowing this meeting. We are pleased to know Lady Iselyth yet lives. The Craftworld feared the worst.' By agreement, Etremedes deferred to Qin – the Astartes took one step forward, Iselyth matching.

'I am Brother Qin, of the Jade Host. Welcome to the _Somnum Temptor_. This is Captain Etremedes, master of this vessel.'

Thenil glanced around, the slightest curl of his lip betraying the alien's distaste.

'It is a charming vessel. Iselyth, I am gladdened to see you well. You are unharmed?' The aeldari male glanced at the flanking armsmen, his gaze lingering in Qin, raising hairs up the back of the Astartes' neck at the alien's scrutiny.

'As well as could be, Autarch. Thank you.' She spoke quietly, head down, humble before the 'Autarch'. Her humility bothered Qin – it should be the other way around, for did Iselyth not survive against all odds on a world infested by tyranids, holding steady to her duty all the while? By what right did this 'Autarch' demand such deference?

'Then we shall trouble you no longer, Imperials. Know that you have the appreciation of the Craftworld. Iselyth?' Qin held up a hand, keeping Iselyth at bay as he advanced on the Autarch. The alien's attitude was boorish and haughty and he drew a modicum of amusement at how, nearly chest-to-chest, the aeldari had to look upward to face Qin.

'Our business is not concluded, eldar. It did not escape notice that your kind trespassed on Imperial soil. Nor that your kind had hidden technologies within the very capital of the world.'

A slick grin wormed across the alien's thin lips, insouciant.

'I believe the Devourer would dispute that claim, would you not agree? Besides, human, this meeting is proof enough of your empty posturing. The Craftworld makes no apologies for your kind choosing to build over our ancient territories.'

'Territories that have been Imperial for millennia. Not yours. Ancient right is no right at all.'

''Right' is ephemeral, Space Marine. I will not argue galactic politics, for I intend to spend as little time here as I might. We are here for Lady Iselyth. Is she free to leave, or is this some simple-minded game you aim to play?'

Iselyth shifted at his side, no doubt thinking of their discussion of the very same. Always did it seem the universe vied to question his honor through a dozen different mouths. To question his word. His oath.

'She is. But know this, Eldar – this could have gone very differently.' The Autarch snorted.

'Yes, it could have mon'keigh. It could have indeed.' He gestured sharply at Iselyth.

'Come, Iselyth. The air here disagrees with me.' Thenil spun on his heel, gliding away toward the shuttle, both of his armored shadows matching step perfectly. Iselyth followed the Autarch and there was no move to prevent her or word to gainsay. Armsmen framing the gathering merely watched. For a moment, Qin thought that would be the last he saw of her – her retreating back, vanishing away into the alien shuttle, departing forever back to her kind.

Then she stopped short, hands clenching at her sides, Autarch Thenil continuing for another pace before he too paused, turning to look back at her. She span on her heel, marching back toward Qin and he read tension in her face. At arm's length, she extended her hand, speaking loudly enough for all present to hear.

'You have my thanks, Qin of the Jade Host. And the thanks of my family.'

There were a few mutters of disbelief among the armsmen. Qin reached out, enfolding her slender hand, remembering standing in the quiet pool in Weatherheart, the first time they had truly reached out to each other.

'And you have my thanks, Iselyth of the Shrine of Shrouded Star.'

She leaned a little closer and for a horrible second he feared she would try to kiss him, here, heedless of the audience. She whispered instead, pitched low enough he knew only his enhanced hearing could pick out the words.

'_Trust no one. Believe nothing. Find your brothers.'_

Iselyth tore her hand from his, Qin too shocked to move.

He stood frozen and dumbfounded as she left him behind, vanishing up into the aeldari craft, preceded by the Autarch and followed by the two silent warriors. What did she mean? What did she _possibly _mean? Trust no one? Believe nothing? _Find your brothers? _Flashes of anger vied with confusion, rippling heat from head to toe as he swung back and forth. Did she know the fate of the Host? Did she know all this time? If she did – did the eldar have a hand in it? Did _she? _Had she been lying to him, behind those honest eyes, all these weeks? Months? It couldn't be, it couldn't – she was with him from before the Host was presumed lost. She could have nothing to do with it. The expected duplicity of a xeno beside – she was no magician. She could not be in two places at once.

Then what did she know? Was it simply conjecture? Qin still harbored his doubts about the story as told by Etremedes and Yovu, as told by the broadcast of Wayfarer Qemu. There were indications, there was evidence, yet nothing conclusive. He had begun to accept the death of his Chapter because there had been no other option, but Iselyth – she was eldar. Not human. Did she see things he missed? Some factor that escaped Qin and Etremedes and everyone here, simply by virtue of her inhumanity?

If she did – why wait until now. Why wait until he could not question her, when she was leaving?

He stood, still as a statue, blind to the world, as the craft rotated silently on its axis, lifting in to the air, and gracefully slid from the hangar on a subtle reverb of secreted engines.

The armsmen filed out after the shuttle departed, but their murmurings amongst each other fell on his deafened ears.

Etremedes paused next to him.

'What did she say, Lord Astartes? The eldar?'

_Trust no one._

'She said farewell. I am…merely surprised at an attempt at pleasantry.' Etremedes bobbed his head, glancing out of the atmospheric barrier, into the void.

'They are a strange race. I cannot say I am comfortable in their presence.'

'Nor should you be, Captain.'

'Too true! I should say instead – they unsettle me in ways other xenos do not. I fear there is always something afoot with the eldar.'

Qin narrowed his eyes.

'Yes,' he agreed, 'there always is.'

* * *

**EPILOGUE**

Autarch Thenil fixed Iselyth with a hard stare, reclining in a sculpted wraithbone throne. She fidgeted nervously, her agitation made evident through a thousand tiny twitches and motions. There could be no escaping his regard and Thenil had trod the Path of Command for centuries. His insights were keen, his acuity famed.

It would make the lie that much harder to sink roots.

'You honor me with your presence, Autarch. Surely our mission was not so important…?'

'The Craftworld has other leaders. I was available. We had feared the worst, Lady Iselyth.' The honorific unsettled her, and she cut him off, ignoring the social faux pas.

'Please, Autarch, call me Iselyth.'

'You still are the heir to your family's holdings.'

'Yes. Please.' He appraised her, then a ripple of a shrug spread along his long limbs, an approximation of acceptance tinged with disproval.

'Very well. Iselyth. Word reached us of the sealing of the portal, yet communication never came from Exarch Ataenith.' She nodded, tamping down the memory of her mentor's death.

'We were ambushed by the Devourer shortly after planetfall. There were too many of them – it was as if they sensed our arrival.'

'Unfortunate. And no others survived?'

'No, Autarch. But I have –' she produced the mesh bag, jangling with waystones. 'I have their waystones.' He raised an eyebrow, leaning forward and offering a hand. She laid the bag in it, and he hefted it, eyelids sliding shut for a moment as he contemplated.

'I feel them. The Exarch survives. As do your brothers and sisters. They will be welcomed home to the Infinity Circuit. Well done, Iselyth. Well done indeed. The loss is lesser with this revelation. So the portal is sealed and the tragedy mitigated. There is one final question. You know what it is.'

'The Jade Host.'

'None other. I admit I was surprised to find you in the company of a Space Marine. The Chapter is reported lost by the Imperium. How did he come to survive?'

She fidgeted, rubbing the back of hand before she could catch herself.

'Like me, Autarch. The last survivor of a squad deployed to recover an artifact.'

'And you aided him?'

'I did. Our paths aligned. Without my Shrine…' she trailed off, letting the implication linger in the air. She'd done no wrong. There was no prohibition. Sometimes one had to make do with the resources given. Was that not the way of the aeldari, to use the lesser races for their benefit? What she did was no different than a Farseer manipulating an Imperial sector to go to war in order to use the confusion to recover artifacts. It was simply on a far smaller scale.

'Acceptable, of course. Yet the prognostications were clear. The Jade Host _must_ be lost. Long have they been a useful bulwark against the greenskins, but that time has ended. This outcome – their loss to the devourer was foreseen. But it needed to be _all _of them.'

'That was not my mission, Autarch. I was to silence the portal. No more.'

'This is correct.' Thenil mused, rubbing his lower lip with a finger while Iselyth lightly sweated, her back prickling as beads rolled down her spine. 'I will speak with the Seer Council. I do not expect this will be an issue. That is – tell me, does he accept the outcome?'

'I don't understand.'

'Will he abide by the loss of his Chapter? Or will he attempt to reform it? It serves us no purpose if the Jade Host is reborn. It must remain dead.'

Unbidden, she felt the same wash of guilt that led her to speak her last words to Qin. She still saw the open shock on his face, the hurt. The betrayal. What he thought of her, of her warning, she would never know. She only hoped he did not blame her. It wasn't her fault. It wasn't.

'He believes it lost. He is aimless, and I don't believe it is possible for a single Space Marine to rebuild a Chapter.'

'Then he will be an orphan and he will not be a factor. Good. Good! Iselyth, I am sorry I am so serious. Come, relax. You must be exhausted, being around such crude beings for so long. Take comfort, we will return to the Craftworld within the week.'

He was right. It would be good to be home. She missed the mind-whisper of the Infinity Circuit, the promenades and quiet glades in forgotten domes. In many ways, Qin had pushed her to the very edge of her patience. The Imperial cruiser was brutish and crude, rough-edged and ancient. The softly curved walls of the chamber in the shuttle was like a mother's embrace after so long – comforting and familiar.

It would be good to be home. Yes. She could see her brothers and sisters into their rest. Find closure. Seek out father.

'But I admit idle curiosity – what did you say to him, at the end?'

She kept her features schooled and calm, flicking her hand and rolling her head, a dismissive admission.

'Nothing of note. A simple fare well. I hold him no ill will, after all.'

'Of course. Even a mon'keigh can be reasonable, from time to time.'

Iselyth nodded, but the perjorative dug at her. She had not called Qin that since the first night they spent in each other's arms.

She sat across from Thenil, sipping at delicate wine.

It was not as sweet as the memory of a particular kiss.

* * *

Homecoming.

Qin had not seen the steppes and deep forests of Choroct in decades. Thirty years, perhaps? Time stretched and changed so long in space, when months might pass in the sidereal galaxy yet only weeks in the warp. A long span either way, especially in a Chapter that valued their roots.

A long time.

The time had never been right. There had been too much to do: some new mission here, some urgent task there. He'd never found the time to take a step back, to request dispensation from his horde's Wayfarer. Choroct was the spiritual home of the Chapter, if not it's physical one. It was where battle-brothers returned to in plain clothes, unarmored, bereft of weapons, to replenish themselves. To hunt in its thick forests, to track across the plains. Sometimes – to mediate disputes amongst the tribal kingdoms.

It was called the _barukt_ – the retreat.

Now he had all the time in the world. There was nowhere else to be.

Atmosphere buffeted the Valkyrie as it descended, engines whining loud and hard. Clouds rolled back, thick and white, Choroct anxious to reveal herself to a returning son. To the far west was the faintest glimmer of light reflecting from the shallow saline seas, but below was the marbled track of the steppes. Bands of dense forest broke up the seas of grass, trees that towered over even battle titans with footprints that could swallow Land Raiders reaching for the stars. In those dappled gloom of those woods lurked predator and prey, entire vertical ecosystems of patient hunters.

The Valkyrie angled southward, tracking along above the hard line of one swathe of forest. The edges of the arboreal kingdoms were always hard-edged, sharp as a blade and unreal. Endlessly the trees seemed to march, until the sudden cessation when the steppes took hold. That was the great battle of Choroct – the endless siege of the dun grasses on the stately fortifications of the forests. In the quick-growing steppes no seedling could take root, but in the shadow of the great branches all grass was stifled out.

It mirrored the duality Qin nursed in his heart. Word from the surface bore Jade Host signifiers. Words spoken in the native tongue of Choroct with the hard inflection of a transhuman sprung hope in his mind. Hope that he was not alone. Hope that this terrible mistake might have been simply that.

It warred with the slumbering anger at his abandonment. If some parts of the Host did survive, here on the homeworld, then why had they not sought him out? His squad? They could not have known they were lost. If it had been Qin, if he had been here, safe on Choroct, when word of the Host's loss over Incandry' Rest arrived, he would've stopped at nothing to hunt down any possible lead about surviving brothers. He would've picked the orbits of that world bare. Scoured the surface.

Trust no one. Find your own answers.

His guts churned at the thought that in the face of this reunion, the only being he held any trust for, any at all, was not even human. And that she was gone from his life.

So Qin warred within himself, hope with despair, eagerness with reticence, gripping tight Chunul's Banner as lodestone.

Thrusters fired, retrojets screaming as the Valkyrie shuddered and trembled, edging in to settle down with a resounding _thud _that shuddered the fuselage.

Menbrecht, Major Menbrecht, offered a cautious smile from across the bay. He'd offered to descend with Qin. 'To see my duty through, Lord Astartes.' A good man. Qin had apologized twice for his careless actions on their first meeting. Menbrecht had gravely accepted both times, assuring him that he was in fact honored. Maybe it was true. Perhaps the mortal was being kind.

'We have arrived, Lord.'

Menbrecht could not bring himself to use Qin's given name. The formality left him ill at ease. Between Etremedes' worshipful awe, Yovu's quiet distaste and Menbrecht's formality, he missed the casual camaraderie of his brothers all the more. Even Iselyth, for she had never seen him as anything but himself.

'It is a long way from Incandry's Rest, Major.'

'It is, Lord. May this be a better parting than our meeting. One born in hope, I pray.' The man made the sign of the aquila, bowing his head. A man of faith.

'Serve the Emperor well, Major. And go with my gratitude, and that of the Host.'

Qin hauled himself to his feet, lifting the Banner from its anchoring socket. The ramp hissed down with a plume of escaping gasses; the clean, sharp scent of Choroct wafting in, dispelling the stale shipboard air. The Astartes left without a backward glance, no mark of his passage left behind but the vanishing imprint on cracked and worn leather.

Two transhumans awaited him, clad in full, shining battleplate of deep marbled emerald, edged in gold and crimson.

Qin could not help the grin that cracked his face, walking faster with the Banner held aloft.

'How many?' he asked, before even introductions, before salutations, before formality. Formality be damned. He had to know.

The two exchanged a glance as Qin got a better look at them. One was older, older than he, scalp bald and shining, only the barest hint of whiskers at his cheek. The other was young, and Qin started at _how _young. Too young. He had the stretched, taut look in his face of a newly elevated neophyte, but he should not be in full plate. Not yet.

'Twenty-two,' the eldar of the two said, and the deep bass voice of another Astartes was like a wash of familiarity breaking over him. 'We are twenty. Twenty-three, now.' Qin struck the pommel of the Banner down hard, gun-shot report echoing across the landing pad.

'Twenty-three? _Twenty-three?_'

'Two training squads. Myself, and Apothecary Zhigua. And now you, brother.' The older Astartes looked uncomfortable. 'I am _Arbana_ Tukayar. This boy is Enkharam. I'm sorry, brother, but I don't recognize you.'

Qin's heart sank. Two training squads. Twenty neophytes, likely barely old enough for the Carapace, if this lad was any indication. They were not brothers, they were barely of the Host. Three. Not twenty-three. Just three. No wonder they hadn't searched. No wonder they remained here. The genetic future of the Host lived on in these neophytes, even if the cultural future was murdered among the stars. The apothecary must be beside himself.

There was only one thing to do.

'I am Qin Nuumokh,' he said, offering his hand, palm up. Tukayar took it, clasping hand-to-elbow in a warrior's grasp. A friend's. 'Seconded Qin, of the Fourth Horde.' Tukayar's eyes widened, the veteran recognizing the import.

'Seconded?'

'Seconded. If we truly are all that are left…' Tukayar completed the thought for him, layering his arms across his chest, bowing deep, Enkharam following after a momentarily delay.

'Then you are Seconded to None, and you are Khan of the Fourth Horde.'

Qin eyed the Banner, the sigil of the Host gleaming bright in fabric and thread and woven filements of adamantium, catching the midday sun.

'So I am,' he said.

'So I am.'

THE END

* * *

**A/N**

Right, so. To new readers from , this originally was a oneshot on 4chan's /wst/ that became a story that then ended up on ao3 that became something I'm really into.

It's not the end of the stories I want to tell about Iselyth and Qin. Not by a long shot. You probably noticed as you read how much unspooled and developed about them. They each became a person to me, as I explored their time together. They changed and evolved a lot. I've gone back and done a bit of editing and a touch of rewriting here and there to reflect that. In particular, the culture structure of the Jade Host evolved the most, from what was basically just 'ye generique chapter' into a fully fleshed out successor chapter of the White Scars that I have a ton of notes on about their particular culture, organization and history. Some of this stuff in here is speculation and abusing the fact that the Imperium is huge and so will have different standards and structures everywhere.

I'll admit I'm way more versed in 30k than 40k. The extent of my direct, narrative exposure to 40k is limited to mostly the Path of the Eldar novels, the Rise of the Ynnari novels, Dark Imperium and the Devastation of Baal. So if things seem off now or in the future about things, call it out. I'm more than happy to learn.

Iselyth too grew a lot in my head, as did her family & craftworld. I'll fully admit the first part was definitely started as kind of a generic 'Space Marine and Eldar have the sex' kind of story, and not meant to be much deeper than that. But these two fucks crawled into my head and I like them both a great deal. It's been especially fun to get into Iselyth's head about things too, since she's both more and less complex than Qin is in a lot of ways. I'm looking forward to playing with her PoV in the future, since this story has been 99% Qin's.

Related to that, I've also had a lot of in-depth discussions with some friends about sex, intimacy, attraction and romance. In particular the really clinical, nuts-and-bolts stuff. Since I'm writing both perspectives, I want it to be believable from either side. I want dudes to read this and get where Qin is coming from. I want women to read this (haha there are no women on the internet amirite) and totally get Iselyth. Not to mention giving either side some insight into the other. I want it to work well, so we've talked and laughed about how autistic I'm being but I've taken some heavy notes.

Note I haven't mentioned which side I fall on. It's because I'm a brittle transition metal with a density of 22.59 g/cm3 found commonly in river sands in the Americas and Urals. And I'd rather let my work speak for me.

Speaking of – thanks for reading my shit. Thanks for being interested. Thanks for putting up with my hedonistic love affair with the comma and my endless attempts to find more and more inappropriate places to grammatically shove it. This was really fun and it's always better to share. This is the longest single writing I've ever managed to finish. I'm pretty proud of that.

Farewell for now. For now. I'll never do that douchey thing fanfic writers do where they fuck off and disappear forever. That irritates the piss out of me. I'm always actively lurking in the 40k thread on /aco/, at the minimum. Nothing barring my unexpected and untimely death would prevent me from saying 'Yeah nah I'm done' or whatever. The internet has enough abandoned works without word. I'm not gonna add to it.

If you ever want to ask me questions, send me messages or tell me random facts about small jungle mosses, feel free to PM me here. I'm always happy to talk.

And for those of you that stuck around and even read this: here's a little treat, a sketch I did of our heroes relaxing. I'm not an artist. i imgur

Farewell for now.


End file.
